By AlanQuin
June 12 2003

With the end of the Harlequin season and the considerable activity which following the team involves, I thought that a more peaceful sporting environment needed to be cultivated. After all the travelling around the country that is involved, with occasional overseas forays, it is a pilgrimage worthy of a Chaucer or a Boccaccio.

We had started in Beziers in mid-August and travelled on through Glasgow, then through all the usual venues of the Premiership Clubs with slight detours to Wales to visit Caerphilly and then to Paris. Because the addiction proved even stronger this year, there were also visits to Oxford and Cambridge Universities, Harrow RFC (Saracens) and Worcester. With two Internationals at Twickenham it amounted to 41 matches, the sequence ending at Welford Road for the Wildcard match.

So it was with considerable relief that I contemplated my first free Saturday for some while. Except that I had bought tickets for the third day of the Test Match at Lords. By the time I reached Lord’s, England had made a substantial score and taken the first Zimbabwe wicket. Eight hours later, I staggered out of the ground, England having won by an innings in the gloom of early dusk. Despite my addiction to Test Match Cricket, I thought lovingly of the much shorter quick fix that is a rugby match.

But I found myself inveigled into a marathon of almost equal proportions the following week-end when I agreed to go to Cardiff for the IRB Sevens and the Wales-v-Barbarians match. Both were most enjoyable but almost as long as the Test Match. Having entered the Cardiff Arms Park before 10.0 a.m. it was about 8.0 p.m. when after England’s last game awe gave up and staggered off home!

Surely that was enough Rugby, except on television, until we would end up in Beziers at that fantastic annual street party and a formidable sense of déjà vu! The comforts of my armchair and four international matches on one day beckon. So why am I contemplating still more punishment? I am certain that it is not pure masochism that motivates my plan to watch the Under-21 Rugby World Cup taking place all round me here in Oxfordshire. It is, I think, a genuine desire to see matches which will be contested between talented young men from the twelve competing nations many of whom will find their way into the senior international teams of the next few years.

Among them in the England squad are three Harlequins. Ugo Monye whose dazzling try scoring against Wasps and Leicester were a reflection of his excellent performances with the England Sevens Team and Chris Bell, an excellent and uncompromising centre, we all know. There is also Henry Barratt, a back of considerable talent, whose performances for the 2nd XV were one of the delights of watching that team last season.

I hope there will be many Quins supporters there to support them.
Full information can be found at http://www.irbu21.com/schedule/index.cfm
Reports of matches involving Harlequins players will follow in due course.