As it is, I'm a Harlequins fan and I am ...(well, what I am is struggling for the polite phrase for what I feel at the moment!) shall we say "a tad irritated"?

Once again we played a good first half. Once again we couldn't finish a certain try. Once again we let simple errors ruin what we had achieved. Once again our discipline let the opposition back into the game.

It all started so well. Nev had his kicking boots on and slotted the first penalty in minute 11 after Saracens killed the ball. After a strong period of pressure in which George Lowe nearly made the line after a chip from Nick Evans, Chris Robshaw and Nick Easter combined to nearly make the line and from the resulting penalty Nick Evans slotted the second. I was starting to think we'd see daylight between the two teams at half time.

However, we dropped the ball on the 22, despite a good defensive scrum, Neil de Cock fed the ball to Hougaard who fired a neat drop goal from not far out to make it 6-3.

Harlequins then nearly landed the killer blow with Easter bursting through the Saracens line and Robshaw going over the line. The ball was adjudged to be held up, Saracens cleared and then forced a penalty when JTH got isolated and which Hougaard slotted.

The frustrations Harlequins were feeling began to show and Easter was lucky not to get a yellow card from Chris White after being penalised twice in a row. Fortunately Hougaard missed the shot.

It was an undeserved 6-6 at half time.

After the break it all went pear shaped. Ugo looked like he'd had a bacon sarnie at half time and forgotten to wipe the butter and grease off his fingers. Everything he touched was a disaster, including having a kick charged down.

Six minutes into the second half and a two on one overlap well taken by Sarries (following a cross field kick from their prop!) led to a good try by Kameli Rotuvo in the corner. Hougaard got the conversion.

A penalty from Nick Evans kept us in the chase at 9-13, but a monster drop goal from Hougaard from at least 50m out negated that.

Harlequins then lost two lineouts in a row and failed to capitalise on the sin binning of Chris Wyles for a trip on David Strettle.

Hougaard got another penalty making it 9-19. Then a final one after a massive rolling maul from Saracens saw Jim Evans sin binned and the final score 9-22.

England's attack coach was apparently watching the game to cast an eye over JTH, and Brad Barritt - he'll know that Brad Barritt has little experience of being involved in attacking moves and that JTH just runs into brick walls!

Ugo Monye (mins 40-50 apart) may have impressed as a full back, he certainly looked good apart from that little blip.

Brendan Venter had sympathy for Harlequins position after the game and was full of praise for the Stoop as an example of a great rugby ground. Of course he was happy with the win. Again, a bit like Richard Cockerill last week, he seemed happy to sacrifice a playing spectacle for a win.

John Kingston thought we should have been 6-9 points ahead at half time. He thought an element of frustration crept into our game before half time and it never left. As a result we became more frantic.

He said the Saracens try changed the game because at that point they shut up shop. Saracens play a certain way (I think he means boring) and kick the ball a lot (I think he means always) but it wasn't as if Harlequins didn't know what was coming. Saracens executed their game plan well and Harlequins didn't.

He said there were a number of tuning things we'd improved on this week. There's a number more we need to look at before next week. We need to look at how we play and whether our style is always appropriate to the kind of game our opponents are playing (I think he means we need to kick more when being kicked at and play boring percentage rugby).

He told the press not to start feeling sorry for us, we are still a good side we just need to address some "anxieties" in our game.

So, Harlequins are played three, won none and bottom of the premiership tonight. We have injury concerns over JTH and David Strettle. While I don't like the word "crisis", the game at Newcastle next Friday is looking to be an absolute "must win" game.

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