Win it with a cricket score and it’s meaningless, win well and we should have scored more, win poorly and there are serious worries, and let’s not even think about losing. Can anyone imagine the glee and collective schadenfreude from Dumb and Dumber?

The first noticeable change was that Simon Keogh was starting for George Harder, I can only assume a late injury, but after only a minute it could have been interpreted as a tactical masterstroke by Dean Richards as he skinned the Doncaster 11 on the outside for a textbook winger’s try. Jarvis missed the conversion which was to prove the story for the afternoon but 5 – 0 after a minute wasn’t a bad start really.

The restart went straight to Andre and this remained the tactic for the whole game for the Doncaster restarts which seemed a bit strange in that he took every catch, never looked like knocking on and did Doncaster’s coaches really think he would lose possession in the ruck? The following phases set the tone for the rest of the game – Quins displayed sense of urgency which was notably lacking last season, Steve So-oialo’s passing was faster albeit still of a rather variable height, the phases came faster than before and from the restart we were suddenly camped in the Doncaster 22.

From the lineout there was a clear statement of intent – the open side was loaded with backs in a swept line, the tactic was clearly to batter at the Doncaster defence and see if there were any gaps. Early kickable penalties were ignored for field position as Quins ratcheted up the pressure.

A series of rucks forced the Doncaster line offside repeatedly and each time the quick tap was taken; full credit to Doncaster as they held their line through repeated attacks and managed to clear well although Gavin Duffy looking far more confident dealt with every high ball with calm assurance.

Bearing in mind our friend in yellow I was pleasantly surprised to see that the lovely Mr. Lander had at that point had a pretty good game, allowing advantage where possible and not allowing the scrum to degenerate into more heated exchanges. Throughout the afternoon Quins dominated the Doncaster pack at the scrum and ruck although there were more handling errors than they will have been happy with. One such ruck led to a hurried clearance from the Doncaster nine which Duffy fielded, sold a dummy so well it had a price sticker and a blue cross on it and scorched down the left touchline to score; 10 – 0 after 16 minutes, so far so good. Again the conversion attempt drifted wide but Quins were starting to exercise real control.

The next ten minutes saw good pressure from Quins with fine midfield defence from Doncaster – their lineout was particularly strong with Roddham hugely impressive with a series of inch-perfect throws to the tail of the line. Unlike at Nottingham Quins were never able to compete on the Doncaster throw although they kept their own ball well.

There was some good interplay in the backs, particularly between Keogh and Duffy who showed a fine understanding of each other’s play with switches, loops and dummies stopped only by good Doncaster defence.

Will Greenwood was subbed on 25 minutes with Mel Deane coming on – he had taken a hard hit a few minutes before and hadn’t shaken it off; prior to that he had looked sharper than I’ve seen for some time, but Mel’s introduction stiffened up the midfield defence considerably as well as providing a number of trademark tackles without a shred of self-preservation. 

The back row was working well on snuffing out any Doncaster back row moves and frequently pushing them back over the gain-line but again knock-ons meant that the advantage was lost along with the territory. One such scrag on the Doncaster 8 led to a hurried clearance from the Doncaster scrum-half Harrison which Richards returned. However, the knock-on from the tackle was quickly taken by van Vuuren who made 40 yards at pace past a despairing Vos, straightening up in the Quins 22 and offloading perfectly to Hunt who finished under the posts. Opportunist try perhaps but clinically finished by skilled runners. A formality for the conversion and suddenly it was 10 – 7 at 29 minutes.

The momentum shifted from that point for some time, another attack from John Boden up the left wing was only a missed pass from another try. Boden drew Duffy into a tackle he had to make and slipped a pass towards van Vuuren which went behind him. Keogh was covering but it was a sign that the dominance of the first quarter was long gone. 

Quins started to claw the advantage back, Jarvis’ place-kicking may have been off target but his kicking from hand was quite the reverse; one torpedo kick spiralling fully 60 yards cross-field and into touch. 

The half ended with honours pretty much even, Deano didn’t look too happy but he was a better colour than Lander who glowed a rather unattractive puce. Still, in comparison with previous experiences he wasn’t doing too badly although I could never shake the expectation that this would change. 

Doncaster started the second half with Wood on for Murray and within a couple of minutes had a penalty on the left of the Quins 22 which was only barely missed– had that been taken we would have been at 10 – 10 and starting to get nervous. 

Quins’ fringing at rucks was off-colour still and So-oialo was forced into a couple of rescues through the pick and drive. His passing is still not what it could be but the speed of thought and delivery are improved and he remains as combative and fearless as ever. 

Quins stepped up the intensity gradually in the third quarter, one particularly savage hit at the ruck from Vos gained a turnover and then a chip ahead. Charlie Amesbury hared off after it and nailed the Doncaster 6, dragging him into touch for an attacking lineout 15 yards from their line. In all Amesbury fought hard but lacked the space to be able to gain real yards, this is no comment on him, rather a result of good targeted defence from Doncaster.

At the lineout Doncaster subbed Grainger for Cook at 7, Cook’s first real contribution was to scrag a Quins back who was so far away from the ball he was in a different postcode. Penalty five yards out from the Doncaster line, the scrum was taken and from the resultant ruck Lorne Ward charged for the line; he was stopped just short but Alex Rogers was on hand in support – try under the post with conversion, 17 – 7 on 51 minutes.

Doncaster walked back to the restart rather more slowly than they had done before – for me this was the turning point from which Quins knew they should win and it showed in a further level of urgency. From the restart and clearance a huge overlap developed which should have produced an easy try but it wasn’t seen. There was another friendly front-row chat after another dominant scrum which was to be Richards’ and Ward’s last as they were replaced by Nebbett and Fuga on 54 minutes. 

The scrums remained dominant from that point although the at the lineout a free-kick was given against Quins for closing the gap – Vos gave Lander some helpful advice on his interpretation of the rules although perhaps unsurprisingly he was ignored.

A clearance from Benson on 60 minutes produced some otherwise unknown juggling skills from Duffy who charged up the left touchline once again, three quick phases forced yet another offside from the Doncaster pack at which point there was another rash of substitutions, Brown, Guest and Vass for Diprose So-oialo and Duffy, Doncaster following suit with Steve Boden for the excellent Johnny Roddham. Diprose worked as hard as ever but is really looking slow at times – his defence remains excellent as does his lineout work but there is an increasingly clear difference between him and Easter in attack. Deano has said that he picks horses for courses; the difference in choice is now perhaps easier to make. 

Another rapid play led to a further offside at the ruck and a quick tap from Vass which was only stopped by a high tackle from an offside position by the Doncaster 15. Lander had a simple task to send Boden to the sin-bin and Quins must have thought that there was the chance for the bonus point against 14 men. However, in sending Boden off Lander appeared to allow his eyesight and common sense, (I use the term liberally), to follow as a series of increasingly bizarre decisions then followed.

Despite Vos’ attempts to remind Lander of the rules he seemed not to notice the Doncaster 9’s clear attempts to pick the ball out from between Miall’s legs but worse was to follow. A series of rucks saturated with persistent Doncaster offsides eventually ground to a halt ten yards out after one Doncaster player dived over the ruck and refused to move while a colleague came in blatantly from the side. The result? Penalty to Doncaster. Well that makes sense then.

Benson cleared the penalty to his own 10 metre line and from the lineout cleared up to the Quins 10 metre line but his kick went out on the full. Rucking back up the field forced yet another offside at the ruck a few yards out – a quick tap from Vass and pass to Tosh Masson and the bonus point was secured. Again the conversion was missed – Jarvis seems to have fragile confidence in his place-kicking but unlike a certain fly-half we had last season he does not let it affect his game, he ran the back-line very well and there were a number of superb bullet passes which generated pace and territory. Jim Evans came on for Bouza for the restart who came off to well-deserved applause for an afternoon of experienced graft and skill.

Doncaster’s full-back returned on 74 minutes in time to witness his pack’s demolition at the hands of the Quins’ tight five and perhaps unsurprisingly there were handbags in a maul from Doncaster’s replacement hooker. It was in the open, the touch judge saw it and told Lander clearly but other than a nice chat he decided to do nothing. Still, in fairness Tani could have been carded for a bit of afters at a ruck so at least Lander was consistent. From the next passage of play Mike Brown managed to squeeze over in the right corner on 79 minutes after good work from Masson, score 27 – 7 which it remained after another missed conversion.

So what to make of the game? The performance was a little scratchy with too many knock-ons, but bearing in mind the weather changed frequently that was probably a factor. I can’t quite shake the feeling that the players don’t quite believe how good they are – they will stick a cricket score past someone before too long but until then they continue to show a hard-edged professionalism which I feel comes from the new Coaching set-up. In their years of utter dominance I never felt that Leicester cared how they played – they set targets, formulated plans on how to get them and then more often that not achieved them. It feels that we’re starting to get that mentality. In his programme notes Deano referred to playing with “arrogance” – this is precisely what we need not only to get back to the Premiership but to succeed in it. We wanted 5 points, we got 5 points and ultimately that’s all that matters. 

I didn’t hear the man of the match award as the West speakers still appear to be wrapped in their packaging, but for me it had to be Vos, as immense as ever in the tight, superb tackling and forcing turnovers all over the place. Similarly I didn’t hear the attendance but assume it must have been around the 8,000 mark which is encouraging.

The players look like they’re having fun, after the final whistle there were smiles all around, how many times did that happen last year – any smiles I saw looked pretty uneasy. We look like a team for the first time in ages, a collection of professionals who look like they actually like each other and know what is expected of them. Another heartening factor for me is that there seems to be a very high quality of replacements throughout the squad. Richards and Ward come off, Nebbett and Tani come on and perform every bit as well. Will’s injured? Fine, we can put Mel on. Academy players are playing every week and never look out of place; to coin a phrase the future’s bright, the future’s multi-coloured.

NEC Harlequins:
15. Gavin Duffy, 14. Simon Keogh, 13. Will Greenwood, 12. Tosh Masson, 11. Charlie Amesbury, 10. Adrian Jarvis, 9. Steve So’oialo, 1. Alex Rogers, 2. Jimmy Richards, 3. Lorne Ward, 4. Pablo Bouza, 5. Simon Miall, 6.Chris Robshaw, 7. Andre Vos (c.), 8. Tony Diprose
Replacements : 16. Tani Fuga, 17. Ricky Nebbett, 18. Jim Evans, 19. Tom Guest, 20. Ian Vass, 21. Mel Deane, 22. Mike Brown
Scores:
Tries: Simon Keogh, Gavin Duffy, Alex Rogers, Tosh Masson, Mike Brown.
Conversion: Adrian Jarvis

Doncaster:
15. J Boden, 14. D Van Vuuren, 13. B Hunt, 12. D Murray (J Cannon 40), 11. L Nabaro, 10. J Benson, 9. C Harrison (L Lane 69), 1. R List, 2. J Roddam (S Boden 60), 3. D Young, 4. E Norris, 5. D Cook, 6. R Earnshaw (c.), 7. S Grainger, 8. D Montagu.
Replacements: 16. S Barretto, 17. S Boden, 18. T Davies, 19. J Rule,20. O Cook, 21.L Lane, 22. J Cannon
Scores:
Tries: Brad Hunt.
Conversion: John Boden

Match Officials:
Referee: Mr. Steven Lander
Touch Judges: Gareth Copsey, Roger Baileff

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