To the delight of their supporters, Harlequins regained second position in the Guinness Premiership table, after their home win against Bristol Rugby last weekend. According to the GP statistics this is their highest placing since October 2003.

It is still very tight in the top six, although Gloucester have begun to pull away after their victory against Leicester. With second place away fifth place and third place at home to sixth a win for Harlequins this weekend would start to open up some daylight between the teams in the Premiership Table.

The statistics also show that Harlequins have lost only one of their last five matches in the Premiership, yet away from home Quins have faired not nearly as well having lost four in a row on the road since beating Northampton up at Franklin’s Gardens back in February. The two sides met on four separate occasions across two competitions last season with Bath winning three of the encounters. In the two premiership matches the honours were even, with both sides winning at home. Quins won 9-3 in monsoon conditions at The Stoop in early January, but lost 31-23 down at “The Rec” just three weeks later. The teams were also drawn together in the pool stages European Challenge Cup, with Bath winning both matches. Ironically, Bath lost in the final of this competition to Clermont Auvergne, which allowed Quins to qualify for the last Heineken Cup place.

Ominously, Harlequins have won just once at the Recreation Ground, in the Premiership since 1999 when they narrowly won 17-15 in February 2005. Bath’s only loss so far this season was away to Leicester in September. Last weekend they snatched a 22-20 win against London Irish, which included a hotly disputed try, and they currently lie in fifth position in the table. Bath remain unbeaten at the home in any competition, since Bristol won there in the Guinness Premiership last November. Obviously Harlequins need to win this weekend to maintain their momentum and Bath are not an easy team to beat at home. Last week I queried how we could have lost away to Newcastle after two magnificent home performances, in the previous weeks. After watching our performance against Bristol that question was probably answered. After a competitive first half performance, where Bristol  were forced to spend much of their time in defence, Quins appeared to lose their way in the second half  as Bristol began to fight their way back into the game. There was disappointment that after Quin’s third that there seemed to be no intent to secure a bonus point from a fourth try, deciding to kick for the final penalty( which was missed), rather than go for a fourth try.

Richards didn’t seem too disappointed with the result “we’ve got a lot of players still out….  and we did reasonably well considering those factors” Certainly the return of our Samoan duo helped to steady the performance notably So’oialo two tries. Richards added after the match that “ We re starting to play some competitive rugby against some competitive sides  which is something we weren’t doing in the first eight weeks of last season”.

Tom Guest had another great game, has anyone told Nick Easter that he'll need to work hard to regain his quartered No. 8 shirt when he gets home from France! Turner- Hall also performed well and was singled out by Bristol’s Richard Hill as Quins’ most dangerous player in the midfield area. Both players must have England careers ahead of them.
This week will also prove a testing match for Malone, who will be out to score points against his old club side. There continues to be some debate with the supporter base about has performance but he cannot be doing too much wrong, as he is currently highest points scorer in the Premiership. He has a sublime cross-field kick, very similar to Andrew Mehrtens and ably continues to fill the position. Bath fans didn’t seem to get on with Malone, in a similar way that Gomarsall fell foul of Worcester supporters, yet his move to Quins has worked out very well, and there is no reason to doubt that Malone will also thrive with Harlequins.

Quins need to rekindle their start of season form and work hard to secure a victory away at Bath. It will not be easy, but it is achievable. A win maintains the momentum, fifteen points from four games is an excellent start but we need to keep the pressure, bank those points and hold on to our current position as the top London club. We also need to get back into the habit of winning away from home. I’m expecting this to be a close match, with five points or less between the two sides at the final whistle.

This match referee is Andrew Small. 

 Come on you Quins!
This weekend fixtures are:

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