The Quins side certainly had an exciting look to it with a very pacey back row (Bouza, Sherriff and Easter) and an experienced set of backs with a very speedy back three in Monye, Keogh and Williams.

Jim Evans charged forward and rose well to tap the ball back for Quins after Adrian Jarvis had kicked off into the strong breeze. The ball was passed wide to Keogh who made a good break but the ball was knocked on on the ground when he was tackled. There was a lot of interest in this first scrum of the game and the Quins forwards certainly seem to have been well drilled by John Kingston since the London Irish game, they shoved Bristol back although Bristol still won the ball, but things were looking good in the tight. They showed much more aggression at the breakdown too.

Jim Evans was active in the loose again when he charged down a kick only for Mr Maybank to give the very odd decision of a knock on!

Vass and Easter both made good ground by taking quick taps at penalties and free kicks, it certainly looked like Quins wanted to run the ball whenever possible.

Bristol had the majority of the possession for the first 35 minutes of the game but a combination of good defence from Quins and poor handling from Bristol meant that the scoreboard saw no action. Keogh, Williams and Monye all made good breaks during this first period but the Bristol defence held strong. Quins made a few changes in this first period with Mehrtens and Robshaw coming on for Jarvis and Bouza and Mel Deane coming of for Gavin Duffy who picked up a bit of a knock.

The first points of the day came from a five metre scrum after Bristol managed to touch the ball down over their own line from a crossfield kick, The solid scrum won good ball and Vass moved the ball right, Tom Williams came from deep, at pace, running a beautiful line, he shrugged off one tackle to break through the defence and score under the posts, Mehrtens added the simple conversion. 7-0, 35 mins.

Bristol then worked their way downfield and it looked like Andrew Mehrtens was in considerable trouble just a few yards from his own line with five Bristol players baring down on him, the fly half dummied left and right, leaving the home players flat footed, before spinning a pass half the width of the pitch to Ugo Monye on the left wing who pinned his ears back, rounded his opposite number Lee Robinson with ease, broke a couple of tackles and went over 15m from the touchline, Mehrtens again added the extras and Quins went into half time 14-0 ahead.

Quins made nine changes including new signing Lorne Ward at tighthead, some of the others who were brought on were Harder, Bouza, Miall, Guest, Amesbury, So’oialo and Richards.

The forwards showed some great pace and handling as they moved up the right with the help of George Harder and it looked as if Jimmy Richards would score but the touchjudge noticed Harder’s foot just going into touch.

Harder made another good break soon after but when he tried to pass the ball out of the tackle the referee got in the way thereby stopping the attack.

Tom Guest was the next to score, again Jimmy Richards showed great pace to make a half break before passing to Guest who seemed to stroll through a couple of tackles from Robinson and Stortoni to score under the posts, Mehrtens got another conversion to keep his 100% record so far for Quins. 21-0, 47 minutes.

A couple of minutes later the Bristol fans thought they had something to cheer when Dan Ward-Smith looked like he had made the line after Bristol had broken through in midfield and had a four on one overlap, but the referee judged he had taken multiple movements to get over the line.

Richard Hill made four changes on 55 minutes bringing on Danny Gray, Mark Irish, Geraint Lewis and ex-Quin Roy Winters.

Bristol kept possession and recycled the ball well, edging closer and closer to Quins’ line, Quins defended well but the defensive line was stretched before Bristol spread the ball left where hooker Saul Nelson easily went over in the corner, Danny Gray added the conversion from the touchline. 21-7, 59 mins.

Quins made more changes bringing Jarvis and Easter back on and also bringing on youngsters Mike Brown and Jordan Turner-Hall.

Jordan Turner-Hall was in action straight away putting in a huge tackle causing a knock on. So’oialo took the ball from the scrum, passing to Jarvis, to Turner-Hall who dummied then passed to Harder who released Mike Brown sprinting up the wing who was tackled just short popping the ball inside to Charlie Amesbury who span out of a tackle to dive over the line in the left corner much to the delight of the travelling fans. Jarvis added the extra points from the touchline. 28-7, 63 mins.

Turner-Hall, who is just 17, certainly didn’t look out of place, he showed great skill not only pace in attack but also some strong tackling, the one that perhaps stood out most was when Roy Winters was passed the ball in midfield and he chose to run at the youngster but JTH held his ground and stopped Winters dead in his track – not a very easy task at all!

Bristol again looked after the ball well and were awarded a penalty just five metres from the Quins line. Bristol got good ball from the resulting lineout and they passed the ball infield for Lee Robinson to score beside the posts. 28-14, 73 mins.

The ball went into touch after the restart and Quins took a quick throw which allowed Mike Brown to head off down the pitch.

Jordan Turner-Hall was in support and made yards himself before offloading to George Harder who carried the ball deep into Bristol territory, the forwards recycled the ball well before a long pass was sent right to Adrian Jarvis waiting on the wing who touched down without any trouble, he missed the tricky kick from wide out to leave Quins 33-14 up with five minutes remaining.

Bristol lost the ball in attack again allowing Adrian Jarvis to break through midfield before putting Mike Brown away for an unopposed run in under the posts, Jarvis got the simple kick to put Quins 40-14 ahead.

This was the last score of the game.

 

So what can we take from the game? Well it was still only a pre-season friendly and it is unlikely Bristol will make as many simple errors again but even  so it was a pretty good Quins performance. 

It was very good to see the forwards doing much better against the Bristol scrum than they had done the previous week against London Irish, although it seems that the opposition was weaker than the Reading outfit. 

The restarts could do with some work, Bristol reclaimed their restarts too many times, but perhaps the absence of the dependable hands of Diprose may have been a reason for this. A bit more practice at the lineout would be useful too, not in the throwing or catching which was good, but in what to do with the ball once it has been won, but there is still a couple of weeks before the first match in the new campaign to iron out these wrinkles.

It really was simple things that let Bristol down, they were good at the restarts, and they kept hold of the ball for long periods of multi-phase play but their basic handling was very poor indeed, the conditions were perfect so there were no excuses except perhaps a bit of white line fever. 

The small crowd, announced as 2,500 but which looked a smaller, was disappointing. I would have thought a warm dry day, the first chance to see some of their new players and a strong side visiting (albeit one from a lower division) with some big names in the line up would have got more of the Bristol faithful down to the Mem.

All in all it was a pretty good performance but we may have been made to look better because of Bristol’s high error rate. The youngsters certainly looked good with Jordan Turner-Hall making a big impact in more ways that one, Because of the big tackles he put in forcing knock ons it was suggested that he be renamed Jordan Turnover-Hall, well we were very happy with the win and we had been drinking for a long while. As well as scoring tries both Charlie Amesbury and Adrian Jarvis put in a couple of devastating tackles too – whatever Collin Osborne and Tony Russ have been doing at the Academy certainly seems to be working!

All of the youngsters played with the same skill level that they have shown playing for the U19s, U21s and 2ndXV over recent years, it was good to see that they could still play their exciting style of  rugby against Premiership opposition.

The forwards looked solid in the tight and mobile around the park, Lorne Ward certainly looks like a good signing, he’s big, a good scrummager, it looks like he’ll need to do some fitness work but it looks like he’ll fill the final prop slot that had been empty.

The half-back pairing looks good with So’oialo and Vass, and Mehrtens and Jarvis all looking very sharp indeed. It is also reassuring to see how sharp Monye, Keogh and Harder are looking, Ugo looks faster than ever and his defence is top notch and George seems to be quicker too, it is good to see him playing without his leg being covered in taping.

So all in all it was a good day out, it was a win, six tries, good combinations of players are appearing, another tighthead signed, the players seemed to enjoy the game and the announcement of a new arrival in the Vos family. The game against Saracens could be a very different matter though but at least we can relish the memories of this game until the trip up to Harpenden on Saturday.

  

Bristol Rugby:
Bernardo Stortoni, Lee Robinson, Rob Higgitt, Mark Denney, Sean Marsden, Jason Strange, Shaun Perry, Alex Clarke, Saul Nelson, Wayne Thompson, Olly Kohn, Gareth Llewellyn, Matt Salter (Capt.), Joe El Abd, Dan Ward-Smith
Replacements: Marko Stanojevic, Manu Contepomi, Danny Gray, Greg Nicholls, Dave Hilton, Mark Irish, Ollie Hodge, Roy Winters, Craig Short, Geraint Lewis 

NEC Harlequins:
Tom Williams, Simon Keogh, Gavin Duffy, Will Greenwood, Ugo Monye, Adrian Jarvis, Ian Vass, Ceri Jones, Tani Fuga, Ricky Nebbett, Kevin Burke, Jim Evans, Pablo Bouza, Luke Sherriff (Capt.), Nick Easter
Replacements: Lorne Ward, Jimmy Richards, Simon Miall, Tom Guest, Chris Robshaw, Steve So’oialo, Andrew Mehrtens, Charlie Amesbury, Mel Deane, Jordan Turner-Hall, George Harder, Mike Brown

Bristol Rugby 14 (0) – 40 (14) NEC Harlequins

 

Scores:
Bristol Rugby: Tries: Saul Nelson, Lee Robinson Conversion: Danny Gray (2)
NEC Harlequins: Tries: Tom Williams, Ugo Monye, Tom Guest, Charlie Amesbury, Adrian Jarvis, Mike Brown Conversion: Andrew Mehrtens (3), Adrian Jarvis (2) 

Referee: Roy Maybank
Touch Judges: Peter Huckle, Bob Mellis

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