By AlanQuin
December 29 2009

As William Schwenk Gilbert wrote in “HMS Pinafore”, “Never mind the why or wherefore…..”, and as he might have gone on, Harlequins can do it. They did it in front of a small audience on a cold Friday night in Leeds. They did it in the frozen wastes of Edgeley Park against Sale. They did it at The Stoop and Franklin Gardens.

They did it in front of over 76000 spectators at Twickenham against Wasps. What is it they can do? They can concede a stupidly soft try in the first few minutes of a match.

For the fifth time in six successive matches Harlequins contrived to concede a soft try to their opponents within the first three minutes of a match.  Quins were defeated 20 – 21, a losing bonus point being scant consolation.

The game had hardly started with only a couple of early skirmishes when from a ruck in Wasps half, Skivington broke with the ball, through the centre of the ruck, and when checked, kicked ahead with Strettle and Simpson chasing for the ball.  Strettle’s dive on the ball caused it to squeeze out from under his body and across the try line for Simpson to touch down.  Cipriani failed to add the conversion.

Both sides were guilty of unforced errors that resulted in loss of possession and although Quins had the bulk of the possession, Wasps’ defence held firm.  Then, in fairly quick succession, two penalties for offside and hands in the ruck, allowed Nick Evans to open Quins’ score and take the lead.  Quins resumed their attack that broke down close to the Wasps’ line with a lucky interception by Webber and a try scoring opportunity was lost.

Wasps regained the lead when Cipriani successfully kicked a penalty to make the score 6- 8 and with six minutes of the half remaining he increased the lead to 6 – 11 despite also missing an optimistic 60-metre attempt.   Nick Evans missed two kickable penalties and the half ended having been rather an unsatisfactory error-strewn spectacle. 

The interval left time to reflect upon the mindless adulation of Cipriani among a section of the press who would select him for England even if he were in a wheelchair. One is driven to the conclusion, confirmed on reading their reports in the morning papers that the sole reason he was selected for the Wasps side for this match was to negate the publicity benefits that Quins derived from taking the fixture to H.Q.  With Walder in form and Cipriani out of form both in broken play and with the boot the former England fly-half looked little better than he had when playing poorly for Wasps A recently at Henley.

The first ten minutes of the second half saw Cipriani miss a further three penalty kicks

Before he was mercifully removed from field.  Replacements for Quins stabilised the scrum, which had been under pressure, as Andress, Percival and Brooker replaced Lambert, Stevenson and Fuga. Injury saw Simpson replaced by Robinson for Wasps. A fine break by Danny Care took play into the Wasps twenty-two where, despite an interception of Care’s pass by Robinson, Quins recovered the ball.  Care tapped and ran but the attack broke down when a poor pass to Monye stopped the winger in his tracks.

Wasps finally replaced Cipriani by Walder and in the front row replaced Payne with Rice.  George Lowe replaced Nils Mordt.

A penalty allowed Nick Evans to kick deep into the corner but the lineout was lost and Walder cleared and with an attack down the right Wasps gained another penalty which Walder kicked to increase the lead to 6 – 14 with the last quarter of the match to play.

Guest and Croall replaced Skinner and Ceri Jones and Quins went back on the attack. A poor pass to Ugo Monye with space to score butchered another good chance.  Quins managed to retain possession being awarded a scrum.  A penalty at the scrum saw a typical Care tap and go that was stopped short.  Care dug out the ball and Brooker took it still nearer and again Care dug the ball from the ruck and Guest was just short of the line.  This time Care dug the ball out and burrowed through the Quins and Wasps bodies to score. Nick Evans converted and the score became 13 – 14 with about eleven minutes remaining.

Concerted Wasps counter attacks followed and fro a turnover on their twenty-two Wasps took the ball into Quins’ territory and with great forward pressure eventually put Hart over for a try that Walder converted. 13- 21. Five minutes remained and Quins attacked again looking for at least the losing bonus point that the Wasps’ score had taken away. There were only two minutes remaining when David Strettle broke through the defence to score under the posts.  Evans rapidly took the conversion and a minute remained.  But it was not to be and a knock on with advantage to Wasps brought the game to an end.

The result opens a seven-point gap between Quins in 6^th place in the table and Wasps now in 5^th with the latter having a game in hand.   While the semi-final place looks out of reach, the Heineken Cup does not.  The LV= Cup is also still within range.

After the match a clearly disappointed John Kingston said the play-offs remain within reach. "We were aware it was a pivotal game and we wanted to perform in front of that crowd in this arena," said Kingston. "For whatever reason we didn't do that. We've got 11 games to go and can go on a run, but it's not good enough to concede soft tries. It was a magnificent occasion and hats off to the club for staging it. Quins showed today that we have a huge amount to offer rugby."

Harlequins: M Brown; D Strettle, G Tiesi, N Mordt (rep: G Lowe, 60min), U Monye; N Evans, D Care (rep: A Croall, 65); C Jones, T Fuga (rep: C Brooker, 50), M Lambert (rep: J Andress, 49), L Stevenson (rep: J Percival, 49), G Robson, C Robshaw, W Skinner (rep: T Guest, 65) N Easter.

Wasps: M van Gisbergen; P Sackey, D Waldouck, S Kefu (rep: B Jacobs, 71), D Lemi; D Cipriani (rep: D Walder, 57), J Simpson (rep: M Robinson, 52); T Payne (rep: M Rice, 59), R Webber, B Broster (rep: B Baker, 72), S Shaw, G Skivington, J Hart, S Betsen, D Ward-Smith.

Referee: D Pearson. Attendance: 76,716