Before kick-off there was a minutes silence to remember Graham Murray. An eerie silence passed across TW2 as both sets of fans paid respect for a much missed player, supporter and, for the lucky few, friend,  and was followed by a fast paced game where both sides played with passion.

Kick-off led to  a kick chase with penalty’s coming quick. The first points being offered to Quin’s however Luveniyali (Biggle’s from here on) missed in what would prove to be a bad afternoon with the boot. 0-0.

Good off-loading by Bristol led to nothing as exemplified when a Bristol pass from a (relative) Quin’s old boy Jarvis found touch on the half-way when trying to find Lemi. With the throw-in the ball was successfully won by Quin’s  and a good kick by Care led to a move which saw Jordan Turner-Hall streaking across for a try. Biggle’s conversion hit the post 5-0.

An iffy next couple of minutes included a missed touch by Brown from a penalty and against us a penalty which Jarvis kicked but proved to be just out of his range. Again messy with neither side having an advantage and not finding the space. It was Mike Brown who ended this when he kicked deep into the Bristol 22 and the ball was collected by the Quin’s, he then finished the move with a beautiful try to the left of the posts, Biggle’s converted 12-0. 

The Quin’s defence was solid with a number of turnover’s conceded by Bristol even with dodgy kick by Ugo. With less than ten minutes to go before the end of the first half another penalty within range came Quin’s way. Once again Biggle’s pulled it wide 12-0.

The next major penalty went against Quin’s, AJ within his comfort zone calmly slotted it over to bring the scores 12-3. Both sides kept up the attack but with less than a minute to half-time tragedy struck. Ugo (much to his confusion) was sent off for a professional foul whilst Bristol were camped on the Quin’s try-line. AJ converted the penalty to make the scores 12-6.

Half-time 12-6

Almost immediately after half time Quin’s once again conceded a penalty, however AJ (perhaps through sympathy) missed. Again Quin’s defence closed up. I should say at this point I missed this being slow to the bar but I caught the rest so it could be worse!

With the second half there was a bit of light relief, the subs were warming up before a raft of substitutions, when one wag in the crowd gave the following verse:

Epi Taione‘o,
He bites you’re noseo,
He butts you’re headeo,
Epi Taione’o.

Well the bench found it amusing!

Now we entered a period of simple mistakes by both sides however Ugo came back on before we conceded any more points.

Now it was Bristol’s turn to infringe with Robert Sidoli being sent off. Within minutes Danny Care with one of his darting runs had crossed the whitewash  The conversion was successful 19-6. The first raft of Quin’s replacements were brought on, Gary Botha, Tom Guest and Jim Evans came on for Tani Fuga, Ollie Kohn and Nick Easter. For Bristol there was a double replacement with Maggs and the recently returned Sidoli being replaced by Barnes and To‘oala (or so the Indy tells me).Next to come on was Brooks for Ceri with what would prove to be short lived appearance.

With 18 minutes there was a dodgy call when a Bristol kick looked to have gone straight out on the full but was awarded where it landed. However it was once again a Mr D Care who took control. It was his box kick from the won line out that led to Tom Guest using all his pace and footballing skills, chipping past the defence and touching down for a beautiful score left of the posts. Biggles missed the conversion 24-6.

Bristol again rang the changes with Blaney and Beveridge coming on for Thomas and Linklater shortly followed by Barden for Junior Fatiola. Not to be out done Quin’s brought on Gomersall and Taione for Turner-Hall and Care.

The match then died down to again silly mistakes but with Gommers looking dangerous which ultimately led to Tiesi making a beautiful run through the centre to touch down near the posts to make the score 29-6, Biggle’s conversion made it 31-6. After this the ball gets stuck in mid-field and Brooks gets damaged and comes off to be re-replaced by Ceri Jones for the final minutes.

The last laugh comes to Bristol however as an Arscott brother starts a move which ends with Lemi going in at the corner. With the conversion being the last play of the game the final score is 31-13.

Looking back at the game, Bristol are not a awful side (it’s been said on a number of forums that this is going to be the closest season for a long time, or ever) and it was never going to be a guaranteed victory. Our defence was good, now coming up to match our obvious attacking flair, maybe we will regret missing so many kicks against a better team however there is always room for improvement and I’m sure this is something Luveniyali will be working on before the next match. All in all a bonus point win for the first home game is not a bad precedent to set.

Tries:
Quins - Jordan Turner-Hall, Mike Brown, Danny Care, Tom Guest, Gonzalo Tiesi.
Bristol - David Lemi.

Conversions:
Quins - Waisea Luveniyali 3
Bristol - Adrian Jarvis

Penalties:
Bristol - Adrian Jarvis 2

Richard Hill “Very disappointing, a huge amount of work has gone in from everybody to prepare the side for this weekend. We didn’t see a great deal of profit from it. A bit like last week we led to our own downfall to kick receipts which got turned over at the back in our first half to concede the first two tries which appeared to be from nothing just kicks downfield, you don’t expect to turn those over and then lose two scores. The first half pretty dismal, error strewn on both sides 12-6 at half time we were still hanging in. 12-6 with a quarter of an hour of the second half and then the sin-bin and then they scored two tries whilst Robert Sidoli was in the sin-bin, after that the game just went away from us but we just made a whole host of errors all the way through. Be that at scrums, line outs, dropping balls, poor passes, it is not easy to explain really when you watch that we’ll all be very disappointed with the end result because it doesn’t reflect the work that everybody’s put in during the week. We shouldn’t have had a performance like that.”

Dean Richards “It would be fair to say we hit top gear today and it’s always very worrying when you’re playing up to the Lord Mayor’s show and we produced it last week and we found it a little bit difficult to just get up there today and it’s a sign of a good side that shows we’ve got a little more work to do than we thought. We missed a host of opportunities and we didn’t quite play in the right areas of the field and some other decision making at times was not particularly good and it’s something we’ll look at and we’ll learn from it and it’s the beauty about the youngsters they’re so willing to learn. Some of the guy’s will be disappointed  with their performance today purely from the intensity point of view but we’ll take the five points and see how things will go”. 

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