By The Prof
October 10 2002

So Harlequins played Newcastle (sorry Newcastle Falcons) this weekend and a team lost to a dodgy decision by the officials – no these two facts are not connected (unless Young Kwin is starting to write articles looking back in time) except the two games took place on the same pitch. The first team won, in fact they trounced Newcastle. The score line could have been much much worse for the visitors if Quins had converted all their chances into points. Five extra tries could have been scored if all of Quins’ moves had come off. So we made something like eleven very good chances in the game but only scored from six and our esteemed leader Evs is duly annoyed. At times we would have cheered eleven good try scoring chances if they had come in one season let alone one game. The fans are happy – the management and players want more, that is a positive if ever I have seen one!

So what of the game? Well we have had pretty close games in recent seasons (if you ignore another good besting of sorry Falcons (I mean Newcastle, or is that Gosforth?) at The Stoop last season. The kick off came, there was turmoil and a score happened within a minute, no I am not talking about a number of games last season where we were on the receiving end but about last Saturday and the team that scored was us! Yes, you heard it right – Pat Sanderson scored for us within a minute! Hmmm, could this be the start of something good, or as PerryGo said could the light at the end of the tunnel be something other than an oncoming train? It seems that there is a chance it might be – thank God for Dr Beeching I say!

We scored six tries against Newcastle, yes six, and yes us! We had a number if players out – Woody (salt poisoning after trip to Siberia), Roy (it was Pooky’s fault), Burkey (legs finally fell apart after too much over use), Dan (sevens is no good but have you seen what the new VO5 has done for my hair), Bell (ding dong! as the ladies say) and Hayter (still working on reversing his invisibility), Duncombe came back at fly half, Greenwood in the centre (with Greenstock and his turbo-charged Zimmer frame dropping to the bench) and Codling in the second row.

The team played as a team, forwards and backs intermingled in multi-phase play and there was good support of the ball carrier. The pack was solid in the tight and that thing of beauty – the rolling maul was put to very good use again and again. In fact we were unlucky not to have been given a penalty try for the number of times mauls was pulled down by Newcastle. Tani Fuga had another great game at hooker and the two props Jase and Gomez were all over the park. The second row played as well as the front row – ie very well indeed – although I seem to remember a couple of messy line outs, but the job of these articles is to be positive so let’s pass over those. The back row – what a game they had. It really is working as a unit now, each player brings something to the trio, Dippy with his experience and ball handling skills, Pat with his speed and fitness and Ace with his massive strength, big tackles and wonderful singing voice.

Now to the backs – the half-back pairing of Duncombe and Slemen worked well both looked dangerous with the ball in hand and Duncombe especially looked back to his best form of last year with quick accurate passing and his harrying of the opposition. It was wonderful to see Will returning to the centre to partner Bill Satala. He got a huge cheer from the 8000 crowd (another positive) when his name was read out and the try he scored was vintage Greenwood. As one reporter said – he moved through the Newcastle defence like a drunk moving across a disco dance floor (or something like that)! The cheer that went up when he touched down, the response of his team mates and his article in The Metro were all enough to make this writer’s bottom lip tremble for a brief moment. Bill had a good game too, taking the ball to the opposition before offloading in the tackle a number of times.

The back three played well again with two of them – Frodo Gollings and Nathan Williams – getting on the score sheet when the took over kicking duties.

So all in all a wonderful day – the large crowd of almost 8000 was amazing since there weren’t a great number of visiting supporters, The number of chances we made (11 or there abouts), was impressive and yes we should have scored more. Evs and Scotty pulled off more players than ever before (only JK during the Natal Sharks game has done more) meaning as many of the starting line up were protected from injury as possible and that everyone got on to the pitch in what was definitely a good day for the club. I am sure Jewell’s 90 second stint made a big difference to the game too.

Seeing the players mixing with the fans on the pitch and signing autographs for a long time afterwards was great to see too. Gomez was out there the longest and seemed to enjoy doing it. In fact the enjoyment showed by the whole team was a delight to behold – it is a game that should be played for enjoyment after all!

The stewards seemed to enjoy themselves too – the cheer that went up when they finally managed to move Gomez off the playing surface was quite something. Why did they have to move Gomez? Well because the Ladies were playing Rosslyn Park on the main pitch after the gents kindly provided the curtain raiser!

The Ladies' match was good to watch and the Ladies played very well against a much bigger pack. In fact the difference in size between the Rosslyn Park props and the Quins Ladies’ scrum half, Kim, was probably the same as Tofty and Garrick! The home side went down to two early tries but they tightened up their defence and replied with two tries of their own to even the score – they would have taken the lead if only Kate Sinfield hadn’t decided to be flash and try to bounce a conversion over the bar!

As I said the Ladies held up well in the tight against a much heavier pack and they were more dynamic around the park. The lineouts were good with Viks giving a performance that Codders would have been proud of (she even managed the obligatory Codders leg injury too!).

Other players that caught my eye were Jo Everett on the left wing who made a lot of tackles including a try saving double tackle with Kate Sinfield, Tanya Wilson who was on the flank who tackled hard all day and turned over a lot of ball too, Leah Carey (who has recently been selected for the England U19 squad) at No8 had a storming game always taking the game to the opposition, scored one try and she even managed to stay on for the whole 80 minutes this week! The full back, Alex Burbidge, played well looking to get into the line in attack and putting in some big tackles too. As usual it is unfair to pick out individuals because the side played well as a team. Let’s hope we can watch the Ladies play at The Stoop more often.

The Amateurs also played on Saturday but not on the busy Stoop pitch. The first team beat Belsize Park 15-0 to go second in their league and the Cavaliers won a hard fought game against Kew Occasionals 20 – 29.

So all in all it was a good day for the club – there were three wins and one loss (although the Ladies deserved a draw – the Rosslyn Park players even admitted that their last try wasn’t grounded and shouldn’t have been allowed), almost 8,000 turned up at The Stoop and the Ladies had a large crowd watching their match too. Not only did we have a good crowd at home we have also got a good load travelling down to Caerphilly this weekend too.

All the injured are one week closer to returning and Mr Vos turns up in just over a couple of weeks – but will he get straight into the team when he arrives?