After two losses on the road this season, Quins finally managed their first away win last Sunday afternoon against London Irish in Round 1 of this short knock out competition.

By all accounts it sounds as if it was a dire game played in dire conditions with the 8 – 10 score-line disguises the fact that all the points were scored in the second quarter of the match. In more ways than one the second half was pointless! An upbeat Daily Telegraph, however, reported more positively that “Harlequins ground out a precious win… with their defiance in the second half underlining that they’re more than ready for the challenge of the EDF Cup”. The report added “… their belief was never shaken and they were able to frustrate the Irish time and time again” The match report written by Brian C on “The Craic”, the London Irish supporter’s website also praises our performance, “Again, you have to hand it to Quins. They soaked up whatever pressure we could put on them and in the latter stages of the game proved masterful at maintaining possession and running the clock down. It is often said that the mark of a good team is one that can win when the run of play is against them. Like it or not, they came to us to do a job and executed it well.”

Whilst not a great supporter of this competition I did watch the televised matches, last weekend with particular interest in the other Group C match, Worcester v Ospreys to see how the opposition faired. Ospreys looked strong, as the 16 – 47 result suggests, with the Welsh scoring six tries, but then most teams would have looked equally powerful against a very poor and sometimes woeful performance by Worcester. Their short comings were ruthlessly picked over by the Ospreys, with Worcester showing just one flash of opportunism when Brown provided a cross field kick picked up by second row Gillies for Worcester’s consolation try.

Group C Table 28th October 2007

Their bonus-point victory against Worcester, has put the Ospreys in pole position in Pool C, with London Irish's hopes in the competition already looking slim after their loss at home to Harlequins. Ospreys play their only home match on Sunday November 4^th, against London Irish, kick off at 16.10.

Worcester have yet to win a competitive match under their Welsh coaching team headed by Mike Ruddock, and their much anticipated antipodean cavalry of Gear, Rawlinson and Tuitupou do not arrive for at least another month, by which time Worcester are likely to be out of this competition.

This defeat was their heaviest in cup competition and head coach Clive Griffiths was reported after the match as saying “I’d like to apologise to our supporters for that performance”. Worcester Chairman Cecil Duckworth tried to put a brave face on events saying that “Mike is obviously learning all the time about the players and the way they play. We’ve been very close in all our other games this season but for this to happen on national television is disgraceful really.” Suggesting that Worcester may field a substantially different team this week, he added “We’ve got some very good young players and I think we need to try and bring them in. The established players are just not performing” certainly from what I witnessed on TV Shane Drahm was very reluctant to put in any hard tackles.

Duckworth has every right to be angry, but he appears to be meddling in the team selection again. It is expected that full back Chris Pennell will start this week along with Fijian back row Netani Talei. Former Quin, Kai Horstmann is out injured with a cartilage as is Gavin Quinnell with a neck injury. As well as Talei, several other youngsters impressed in the recent “A” League game against Sale and according to the local Worcester Press Ruddock is believed to be weighing up the pros and cons of blooding them. “Ideally, we would look to integrate some of the younger players into the first team during the EDF Cup and European games. I want to bring them into a confident side if possible, a winning side. But there is a window of opportunity to start them in these cup games." Captain Pat Sanderson was replaced at half time last Saturday; it is not know whether he is injured.

The Harlequin’s 22 for last weekend’s match seems to have had some experimentation engineered into it with Strettle at Full back and debuts for our summer signing South African Centre, De Wet Barry, together with the return of Adrian Jarvis and a new front row combination. The win seems to suggest that this experiment was not a failure; however we will all be eagerly awaiting the team announcement on Friday lunchtime, to see whether this continues. Despite the perceived weakness of Worcester they do have a strong pack, which will need to be broken down. It is likely that Dean Richards will have half an eye on next weekend’s Heineken Cup competition when Quins travel to Paris to meet Stade Francais, and the match the following week against Cardiff, before a brief return to the Premiership to play Gloucester down at Kingsholm, and then The Ospreys are home first weekend in December. Harlequin’s fixture list over the next few weeks certainly has a competitive an edge to it, so this weekend will probably see a little more tweaking, before the eagerly awaited return of Easter and Gomarsall.

Worcester will be holding a fireworks display on Sunday evening at Sixways, a repeat of their performance on Saturday afternoon could see the fireworks start to fly twenty four hours earlier than planned. It is hard not to predict a home win for Harlequins this weekend

With an away win banked and the remaining two games in this competition to be played at home, Quins are in with a good chance of progressing to the semi finals,. The match against the Ospreys is, therefore, a match that should not be missed

Come on you Quins!

Bookmark or share this story with:

• Digg
• Delicious
• Facebook
• Reddit
• Stumbleupon

Related Articles:

• EDF Cup: London Irish 8-10 Harlequins

SPORTNETWORK SPECIALS