In thehour in between the big green machine unhesitatingly took the chances that wereon offer.

The weekend’s rain, a giftfrom the visiting Irish President Mary McAleese, had eased off by kick off timeand Nick Evans set us in motion. Quins looked the part for the first ten minutes or so, recycling welland showing pace out wide.  Irishlooked a bit out of kilter to begin with as Ryan Lamb had appeared in their 9shirt. I’ve seen worse scrum halves (anyone chosen for England between 19070and 1975 immediately springs to mind) but Lamb definitely looked like Muttonfor a while.

However, once Lamb settled,put boot to ball and BBC started broadcasting his presence – Big Bob Casey – LImade inroads into Quins’ territory. Wayne Barnes at this point gave up his “eeny meeny miny mo” system –where he’d whistled each side in turn – and started pinging the visitors,mostly at the breakdown.  Tom “Homer”Simpson kicked his goals the way his namesake downs beers – he only missed onceall afternoon. 

At 6 down Quins got straightback into the Irish, disrupting scrums and Nev sniping well.  Clean ball saw Stretts come in on theburst from the 22 and make the LI line. With my “Quins-omatic” spectacles (made by the same firm as “WengerVision Spex”) I clearly saw Stretts ground it.  Barnsey and his touch job probably bottled it and calledheld up.  In the simple days beforethe TV official, refs just trusted their instincts and 99 out of 100 would havegiven it.  In truth, not muchturned on it.  From the scrum fiveLI took up a curious defensive formation – Chris Malone (who did a tidy job allday) packed down at 8 and Seff O’narmitage slid into the 10 slot in the backline.  Quins said thanks very muchwhile the LI pack impersonated a dog on lino going backwards quickly.  Barnsey had no hesitation in giving thepenalty try.  Nev supersized thepushover and it was 7-6 up and the boys were looking handy.

BBC must have kicked hisboys up their collective backside as for the next 20 minutes LI ran theshow.  They bossed the breakdowns,messed up our lineout, looked impregnable on theirs and looked better at thescrum.  With a good supply of balleven the make shift set up LI back line found some room.  Chris Hal’ufia took some slick insideball in mid-field and did a demolition job on our defence, getting the offloadaway to Steff O’Narmitage. With a piston strong hand off he thundered in by theposts; yikes…..13-7.

It didn’t get much betterfor Quins as we seemed to pick up a rash of knocks, with Tom Guest taking asabbatical in the blood bin and Stretts ultimately limping off.  The Irish grunt was enough to generatea couple more penalties before half time - it’s so easy for refs to penalise a team on the back foot as Quinsfound to their cost – and young Homer showed that both Malone and Hewatt couldkeep their kicking tees in their kit bags.  The half time score of 19-7 flattered Irish slightly butthey had taken every chance on offer to their credit……sounds familiar doesn’tit Jonno?

Half time saw Guesty back onbut with not much discernible difference to the overall pattern of play.  Nils Mordt had filled in for Stretts atcentre with George Lowe shuffling out to wing.  Mordt had one of his best games for Quins but “Seveali’” and“Mapusua” is Samoan for “brick” and “shithouse” so he didn’t get much changefrom them.

Nev missed with a longish shotafter Barnsey realised, unexpectedly, that he could signal both ways.  It didn’t last as more Irish pressure sawanother penalty against Quins. Homer supplied the poetry as he banged over one from a range similar tofrom where Nev had just missed……taking chances is what it’s about.

At 22-7 down Quins could seethe Irish number plate on the big green juggernaut - BLARNEY 1 - speeding intothe distance and so started to chuck it about a bit.  For the first time for a while we began to ask some questionsas some of the Irish front five – and their back row for that matter – are notkeeping Usain Bolt awake at night. No sooner had I thought this when a stray long pass – and I missed the Quins’donor – found BBC as the willing donee. He was brought to ground quickly but off loaded to Nick Kennedy who thenshowed a really great burst of speed seeing off the fairly rapid Karl Dickson(I think) who was chasing back over 25 metres.  The cheeky sod even had the nouse to bring the touch down infrom the corner to make the kick easier for Homer.  Kennedy’s a disgrace to the second row union, thinking andrunning at the same time.  Homercompleted his Iliad with an easy conversion and at 29-7 we were all facing along trip home.

George Lowe had other ideasand dusted off his dancing shoes and stepped his way through the Irish cover ona number of occasions as Quins kept the ball in hand, alive and moving at speed…..HINTHINT!!  Irish creaked for the firsttime in an hour and conceded penalties in a hurry.  Finally from a kick to the corner we produced good enoughball for Nev to conjure up some space in midfield and feed Brownie.  For a moment I shouted at him (as in Iwent completely purple and apoplectic) because he delayed his pass….but he justfound twinkle toes who danced around his winger one way and then outside GeorgeStowers, I think.  They made anunusual Fred and Ginger but it was great consolation on a fast darkeningafternoon. 

Nev banged over a crackingconversion and we ran it back at Irish again.  Georgie, this time after a great chase back and cover, foundroom in a very small in goal area to run out and stepped through the big guysagain.  He spoilt the effect byslipping on an invisible banana skin just as the dance floor ahead of him hadcleared.  By then Barnsey had seenenough and he invited us all to the bar with a final blast.

I never go to the pressconferences at matches that I report on – I usually have too many children intow and so get asked to leave quickly – but they are not often enlightening(press conferences that is, not my children).  In fact I’ll only get out of bed for Brendan Venter thesedays.  My guess is that Boothycould no doubt be deservedly pleased with his guys’ showing particularly withLamb at 9, and I daresay he gave the press his own gaffer speak version of “wellchuffed”.  Irish needed a win toget their end of season targets back on track.  I suspect JK could just have “tipp-exed” out any number ofaway teams, scores and venues from his previous post match statements, butfundamentally the Irish 8 out did us.

For Quins it was more badthan good: Nev conjured up some space but his kicking game was way off (has itgot to Newbury on the full yet, mate?) and a couple of his passes arrived with “StGeorge’s Hospital, Tooting” written on them; JTH must have been ill – giventhat he was apparently sick on the pitch; Jordan,  over doing it’s allright on tour mate – but not in a league match!!  Seriously, JTH has not looked the part since coming back – Iknow it’s early days – but the Bayeux Tapestry has more dimensions than hisroute one special.  Sam Smith wasbrave under the high ball but today he was more “Chiswick” than ESB.

In the forwards I thoughtJames Percival fronted up well and – in what’s a great quality in a rugbyplayer – he looked after his team mates when the aggro was flying.  Robshaw as ever worked immensely – hasn’the heard of the EU Working time directive? – but Skins and Guesty had theirhands seriously full with the Huf, Stowers and Armitage.  In fact I’m struggling to think ofthree people that I’d rather upset less!

For Irish Nick Kennedyformed a great double act with BBC and made the line out his own.  Quite what he has to do to get back onthe Engalnd radar is another matter…….oh hang on, just move to somewhere in theMidlands I think.  Steffon Armitagealso metaphorically tugged at Jonno’s sleeve and probably deserved to shade theMOM award largely for his afternoon’s grand larceny at the breakdown.

With Worcester and Leedsboth doing their own version of Lazarus over the weekend, it’s JK nervouslylooking over his shoulder at the bottom of the table and the opening hours ofTwickenham job centre. Suddenly the rearranged game with Leeds has got aworryingly familiar look to it.  Aswe drove disconsolately through the gloomy Berkshire countryside …..we all realisedthat we are not out of the woods yet.

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