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Preview: Harlequins vs London Welsh


By Wyddy
October 3 2014

“That was not remotely about what we are as a club and I don’t expect to see it again…” Us neither Conor. That’s twice this season we have been put through a horror show. However I get the feeling the fans aren’t half as shocked as the coaching staff. 

Why is this? 

Naturally fan reaction, on the whole, tends to be extremist as it is emotionally charged rather than looked at with an analytical mind trying to earn a salary. Many have been saying for a long time now that we have failed to replace the timber we have lost from the team in the departures of Kohn, JJ, Guesty and Big Mo. All 4 of those players could be counted on to come in and make the hard yards ball in hand, they’ve been replaced with academy products with bucket loads of potential but little high end experience. 

Against Exeter whilst Quins were poor we also didn’t get the rub of the green from Marlers mate Mr Small. For example the assistant ref calling to him for a pen against Exeter as he reset a scrum and then gave a pen against Quins… it just wasn’t going for us. However Exeter weren’t that great, again we conspired to beat ourselves giving away another charge down, basic errors in our half and a god awful lineout gave the match away. 

The performance on Sunday was perforated with basic errors, not controlling the ball, poor handling, lack of direction and taking too much on when doing the simple things right would have allowed us to regroup. Experience can’t provide all of that can it? To an extent it can, experience will tell you when to trim the wings in order to rally, experience will provide a rock for the younger players to cling on to when being buffeted by the opposition, experience will prevent panic. 

So where’s the experience in our team? Robshaw, Brown, Care, Easter, Evans and Robson are all fantastic club servants with ample game time, so how come their experience seems to be insufficient? Have we just got the balance wrong? Is our ratio of grizzled veterans to enthusiastic youngsters out of sync? Have that core of players not been empowered to be leaders around the field? You can see some success in this from Easter and Brown as they have raged and tried to lead by example in our poorer games this season. Care always seems to take too much on his shoulders when we’ve been going down and Robshaw whilst playing well seems to have been neutered in a leadership regard by stripping the captaincy from him, probably trying not to step on Joes toes. Evans and Robson haven’t been in their finest fettle this season, so leading by example perhaps probably not possible. 

Whatever the rub, we have what we have this season. Matthews showed in the Wasps game what he is capable of but has to start doing it consistently and not just when he’s up against his old stable mate Launchbury. Sinckler proved in the game against Exeter that he does have some nouse, when he straightened and held his side of the scrum getting on the right side of the ref at the same time. The thing is we haven’t become a bad team over night, there are some seriously talented players in our side, but when confidence is low every pass you receive you worry if you’re going to fumble it and begin the malaise. As for the lineout Dave Ward drops to the bench, no matter what he brings in the loose having no lineout ball is tantamount to suicide. It baffled me why we kept going long last weekend when it was clear we were having issues. Perhaps another symptom of trying the extravagant because we were chasing the game. I’d like to see Quins truck it up, keep it simple, play in the other teams half and use our mobile back row to press the oppo into errors. 

Speaking of our back row… something’s not working. The combination of Wallace and Robshaw had their moments last season, however Wallace in particular was playing a lot better than he has shown this season. I think most would agree there’s nothing wrong with Robshaw, and he has been making the hard yards and playing his sometime role of first receiver/distributor. As said earlier in this article, Easter continues to set an example and continues to belie his years. The conundrum then appears to rest on Wallace, so long has he been hailed as our next bright thing after winning the LV breakthrough award, that perhaps laurels have been rested on? Last season he was forever seen on the wing, even in his Saxons appearance, tactically this is to have an aggressive wing forward capable of harassing opposition ball or busting holes. However this tactic rarely worked for us and Luke was much more prominent when he came jackalling the rucks. This season however he has failed to make an impression, honest endeavour yes, but I think most hoped he would push on more than he has, he certainly has some ground to make up on Will Fraser – and he hardly ever plays! The combination of Wallace and Robshaw at the moment doesn’t seem to be gelling and I would like to see the likes of either Clifford (unfortunately injured at the moment) or Trayfoot given licence to have a crack at the position and Luke to come back in when Chris is off captaining England. For this week however thing’s will stay as they were with an unchanged pack. 

In the backs Nick Evans returns in place of poor old Ben, who had a bit of a mare again last weekend. Many argue that Botica will only really begin to shine when he has a good run of games and the opportunity to make the role his own. However other fly halves in the Premiership don’t seem to require such delicate nurturing, look at Saints, Sarries, Bath even Exeter, their options at 10 all are effective game managers and their decision making under pressure appears to be superior. Botica has the talent, but his default setting of kicking the ball away rather than taking the contact or looking for the simple pass frustrates fans. A prime example of this was when we were beginning to build momentum in the second half against Chiefs and had been through the phases and were approaching their 22 with a nice line attacking the wing and he chips (kicks) over the top looking for the wonder kick, and the gathering pressure is released immediately. Such moments turn games and it’s his responsibility to manage the tempo and the pressure on the opposition. The arguments for continuing his selection are given additional weight with the fact that Evans has played like a drain this season. Poor kicking form and not so great out of hand have been apparent, although Evans recently admitted he was carrying a knock from preseason he says that he’s back to 100% now so we hope to see a much improved performance on Saturday. Evans is a player who doesn’t play his natural game if he’s carrying the slightest injury (knock,) look at his performances at the back end of last season after he came back from getting an injury sorted out. He was breaking the gain line, demonstrating his pace and eye for a gap and pitched in with a few tries. Let’s hope he rebuilds his confidence and also the confidence of some fans this weekend, after all… “He ain’t bad for a kiwi…”. 

Casson and Hopper return in the centres, it’s been a while since we have seen this partnership and it was very much our 2nd pairing in our Championship winning season. Not sure what to expect here, Hopper should be match fit or there abouts after 2 weeks off with a finger injury but Casson hasn’t played in a while, it may take him time to get up to speed, but at least it’s not top 4 opposition. The back 3 has a solid look to it, with Brown bringing his A game all season, although at the moment Yarde is probably wondering if he made the right choice after joining the side that sits bottom of the tries scored in the league. He has shown cameo moments of the talent which led Quins to lavish what is undoubtedly a pretty substantial package on him, however he has also had a couple of eek moments, particularly ‘Cramp-gate’. Tiokirutuma has also shown he has what it takes to replace media guru, Ugo Monye, he scored last week from outside centre, but certainly looks much more at home on the wing and is surely just a matter of time before he and Yarde get over the whitewash… assuming we earn the right to play up front. 

Moving onto Welsh, and they’ve sure had a rough time of it so far this season. Large losses in their first few games have led them to be dismissed out of hand and some of their defending has been abject. However in the last couple of weeks they have managed to be competitive for the first 60 minutes and are slowly gelling as a side. Taking in 25 new players will always be a massive ask, but Welsh gambled on this approach after trying the other way a couple of seasons ago. Barkley and Weepu are astute signings and at some point this season they will fire. They have a number of savvy players in the side, not least Tom May who continues to give 101% in their centres. Add into that a smattering of former Quins players and there will be a whiff of the familiar on Saturday as we welcome back Stegmann, Browne, Jewell, Hala’ufia but will not see Mr Molenaar who is currently out injured. Welsh will win a couple of games this season and even though the score lines in their games indicate a side out of their depth they have some talent. Everyone will be expecting us to stick a bonus point win on this one, even with our current form, but the result could be a lot tighter. 

It’ll be pretty simple to give London Welsh’s team talk on Saturday, one assumes it may go something like, “Right o boys, we’ll let them have the breakdown, keep the line speed up, get in their faces and whenever possible kick the ball down their 22 and let them play. We’ll have a nice scrum in their half of the pitch and take the lottery.” With the weather likely to be soggy Welsh will look to play the percentages game and pin us back where possible. Safe hands are required and butter fingers like Ollie Lindsay-Hague’s fielding of a kick off last week will derail any sort of momentum that builds. Welsh will be looking to take Quins on up front where there is a perception of weakness and then aim for territory with Barkley and Weepu pulling the strings. A similar performance level to the one that beat Wasps should see Quins through, but that is not enough for us fans. It shouldn’t take a humiliating performance to have the guys snorting fire, to have Matthews making a nuisance of himself and hitting rucks with some authority, to see the defensive line hassling and slowing down opposition ball. We don’t want to go back to the era where we showed up not knowing which team was going to take the field, yes we’ve been spoilt in recent years by consistently good performances but the fans will forgive a great deal if we do the basics right and show passion and real intent. 

With all the above being said… you’ll no doubt be unsurprised to see me predicting a Quins win again… let’s hope my prediction doesn’t follow the others I’ve made this season! Quins by 10pts. 

COYQ!!! 

Dave (Wyddy)

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Preview: Harlequins vs London Welsh
Discussion started by ComeAllWithin.co.uk , 03/10/2014 18:46
ComeAllWithin.co.uk
03/10/2014 18:46
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