Due to the ground share with Reading FC, London Irish generally have play their home matches on a Sunday.

It is hard to believe but Harlequins have not played at the Madjeski Stadium for about three and half years. This is due to the vagaries of the “home ties” for the London Double Header and of course our sabbatical season in National Division One. For those who have not visited this stadium it is just 33 miles from The Stoop via the A316, M3, M25 and M4. The Stadium is just off Junction 11 of the M4 and now features a solitary wind turbine which has been erected close by. The Madjeski holds many fond memories for Harlequins as it is the venue where they won the European Shield in 2001 and the European Challenge Cup in 2004.

Harlequins have been drawn in Pool C along with London Irish, Worcester Warriors and the Neath-Swansea Ospreys, who narrowly lost to Leicester in the final season. BBC 1 are broadcasting the Worcester v Ospreys game at 14.30 on Saturday afternoon, which will give us an idea of  how the opposition performs as Quins have yet to play Worcester this season. All four teams have played six matches so far this season Quins have had the best start with four wins, Ospreys have two wins and a draw, London Irish two wins and Worcester being less than satisfied with just one draw. Ospreys are also in third place after six games in the Magners league.

The two sides met on the first day of the Premiership Season at Twickenham where Harlequins won an exciting match 35 – 27. Since that match Quins have come away with four wins and two losses to establish themselves in fourth position in the Premiership. Last weekend at home to Wasps, Quins did it the hard way but came away with another home win, securing a victory by one point 26-25, and some dogged defending of their lead to the last. Hindsight suggests the way this match was played was to get the nerves of the Quins supporters in shape before the World Cup Final.

London Irish have not had the best of starts to their season having won two matches, both at home, against Newcastle, and surprisingly last weekend against Gloucester, however they find themselves towards the foot of the Premiership along with Worcester, who have yet to win a game after six starts and appear to have re-established their comfort zone at the bottom.

London Irish’s 15-10 victory over Gloucester owes a lot to their new signing  ex Waratah, Peter Hewat who has just recently arrived from Australia, who had kicked them to a 3 point lead at half time, and the two tries from their Argentinean winger Tomas De Vedia. Irish may have begun to have turned a corner after a poor start and we helped by the return of Shaun Geraghty from injury.

After their heroic endeavours in France, the England Rugby Team returned home on Monday, with two Quins Easter and Gomarsall, and with Catt and Richards from London Irish. Of the four only Peter Richards is playing this weekend. At the Quinssa Meet The Management evening this week Dean Richards said both our No.8, and No.9 would have a least a week or possibly two off to recover providing they were not carrying injuries. With two weeks of EDF matches to come I would not expect to see them be available until at least our first Heineken Cup match, and a rapid return to Paris on November 11th against Stade Francais.

Both teams have new looks at full back with Tim Curran (a 23 year old Australian) starting his first senior game of the season for London Irish whereas Quins have put Dave Strettle at fullback for the first time. Quins have two new faces on the team sheet this week with James Percival starting his first game with Jim Evans being rested and De Wet Barry starts his first game after arriving from South Africa last week.

In an interview Brian Smith targeted Malone as one player that Irish want to keep quiet, they may find this quite easy since he’s being given a bit of a rest on the bench with Adrian Jarvis starting his first game of he season after recovering from injury.

Probably the greatest strength in the LI side is their line out, Quins’ young hooker, Chris Brooker, will have to have his throwing spot on o make sure that London Irish don’t dominate this area of the game.

With Quins poor away record, and the spark of a resurgent London Irish, we can probably expect a home win, although Quins record at the Madjeski Stadium has been good in the past, the only way to improve that away record is to start winning. The EDF cup winner does gain an automatic Heineken cup place next season, however the way the competition is set up, it is very much a knock competition from the start. With just three games to play in the pool stage, one loss and you are effectively out of the competition. Deano could therefore select his strongest team, if they lose, then the cynic in me suggests that a second string selection could follow for the remaining matches. Much will also depend on how much credence Dean Richards put in this competition, and we are likely to find that out on Friday lunchtime when he announces the team.

The EDF Energy Cup started as the national knockout cup competition that involved 132 Rugby Clubs around the country, each fighting through a series of knock out games for the right to play the final on the hallowed turf of Twickenham Stadium. The competition was first played in 1972, with John Player as the Sponsor. Over the past 35 years the competition has evolved through a series of sponsors that have included Pilkington, Tetley and Powergen. EDF Energy claim that today in the age of professionalism the cup remains the premier domestic club knock out competition. In 2005-06 the format of the competition was changed, although devalued might be a more appropriate adjective, to a new format that included only the twelve teams from the Guinness Premiership and the four regional Welsh clubs, who would play for the Anglo-Welsh Cup. The teams from the National Division One and below now play for the EDF Energy Cup Harlequins were the first winners of this trophy when they beat Bedford in the final three weeks before completing the double by winning the National One Championship.

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