By Worried of Whitton
March 22 2004

The excitement certainly continued this month. but the early encouragement of January turned to the exasperation of February, culminating in a desperately two close games against Saracens and Wasps.

Quins appeared to spend most of February defending their lines. The match against Saracens was littered with numerous injuries and blood replacements. A situation that grew worse when two players returned to the pitch (blood reversals) with the infamous “Vos headband”. The defeat by Wasps, albeit by one point, was a very close affair but the strong defensive line was spent at the close, and with one man down there was not enough resource to prevent a snatched home win.

Jim Evans if I recall correctly picked up the CAW man of the match award from this game. It can be difficult to review an away much, especially when you aren’t able to attend the match. The Web link does help but is not a true substitute. The difficulty becomes compounded when the away match is in Europe and an web link is in French!. Fortunately one is able to glean details from friends who attended the match and feedback from the CAW match report. (note to self: must travel to Galway!)

I can only surmise that this was down to his performance in Defence and in the lineouts. By all accounts this was quite a feisty match

The following week Evans picked up a dislocated shoulder, mid way through the match against Saracens, which saw numerous injuries and blood replacements, that it was difficult to keep track of who was actually playing. ” By early March, Evans was well on the road to recovery when he played the Zurich A match against Gloucester, and it is hoped will be fully fit to play against Leicester.

Paul Burke You just can’t keep Burkey away from the Player of the Month review. He must certainly be on course to pick up Player of the Season. He captained Harlequins in the Parker Pen away match in Brive at the start of the month and he was a clear CAW man of the match winner scoring all the points in the “London Derby against Saracens mid month. In a moment of indecision, during the second half he got flattened by Hill,and was down for a very, long time with paramedics coming on to attend to him. A sight no one likes to witness. He left the field on a stretcher to a great applause. And his only concern at hospital was what was the result.. We understand recovery is continuing and we look forward to him returning soon,

Burke's kicking in the Brive game kept Quins in touch with the home side, and ensured the home leg lead was not completely eroded away. In what was to be come a bad tempered match, “Burke had another good game, with some real bits of adventure” mike pw

Paul Burke has been pushed into playing his best rugby by both Andy Dunne and Adrian Jarvis The pressure is all the more intense with Dunne having a slightly better percentage success rate than Burke

Tony Diprose was Mark Evans man of the Match against Saracens, which was a lack lustre affair but with some strong defence by Quins. Diprose played well and made a crucial turnover under the posts, which prevented Saracens from securing at least five points. Tony has not been the automatic choice, this season and in some areas he has not been as consistent as he was last year. He has spent some time on the bench back the back row is bursting with very able players at the moment, and there have been difficult decisions to be made in choosing the squad. Diprose acknowledged in an interview with Kev T “ that there are difficult decisions to make with this squad….. It’s a highly competitive area…. There’s tremendous competition in the front row, there wasn’t that competition when I joined the club.!” Playing against his former club was a big game for Tony and to come out of it as Man of the Match was a great achievement for him.

George Harder until the final seconds of the match against Wasps was to named as Sky Man of the Match. The “honour”, inexplicably went to Erinle, who fended three poor tackles and went over for the “killer try” at the end of the match. Why do the TV channels never award a man of the match to the loosing side? even when the match is as close as this one, the vote always goes to the winning side irrespective of whether there is a more favourable candidate from the opposition.

Needless to say Harder picked up the CAW Man of the Match for his performance on a freezing night in the Chilterns. George was putting in the hard yards most of the evening , and he was harder who burst through a number of tackles to set Sanderson up for Quins second try.

Since his return from injury Harder has put in a number of good performances “…but Quins were determined to keep their advantage and a lineout in the Brive 22m was followed by a TOB and a switch to the blindside for George Harder to dive over the line in the corner” ( mike pw) A further reason for Harder’s nomination this month was the feedback from Kev T on this game “The thing that stopped Brive capitalizing on their home advantage was their inability to retain the ball in possession and the excellence of Quins in the tackle area where they continually turned over ball. Key moments for me last week were when George Harder twice in five minutes, stripped Brive of possession in the tackle when they were camped on the Quins’ line.”

As Kev T discovered in a recent interview with him. “I am enjoying my rugby at Quins. I knew Tani and Ace before I came here. I’ve enjoyed playing with the team and the whole management have been helpful. I’ve enjoyed Paul Turner’s coaching. He really likes to work WITH us.”

Nominations, in alphabetical order for CAW Player of the Month for February 2004 are.

Paul Burke

Tony Diprose

Jim Evans

George Harder

A hard choice again this month, but I think my vote would go to George Harder over Paul Burke, I apologise for the lateness and the brevity (Brive ity?) of the February Player of the month report but work has had to take priority this month.