By Prof
September 8 2004

So a new season is upon us and we are going to be taking on one of our ‘local’ rivals in a new spectacular in the rugby calendar, the London Double Header. We will be traveling the short distance across the A316 to play an away game against London Irish. Quins’ pre-season hasn’t been the smoothest ever, a loss away to a strong Bedford side showed a team that hadn’t played together before, there were also some youngsters in the side that we hadn’t seen previously. Other than the loss of the game the loss of new signing Maurice Fitz Gerald wasn’t exactly ideal. The squad then went over to Belfast for what, by all accounts, was a very enjoyable and successful tour. The first half of the game against Belfast Harlequins showed a Quins side that didn’t have much imagination behind the scrum, but the second half was a completely different story eight tries were run in and things were looking better.

The game against Ulster at Ravenhill was the hardest game of our pre-season, it still looked like the team needed more time together but as the game went on they played better and better. The defence at times looked a little suspect but time and again Ulster were kept out. It took a wonderful piece of individual skill from Luke Sherriff to win the game for Quins at the death but fighting until the last minute and winning in that last minute is something we’ve come to expect from Quins recently.

The cancellation of the final pre-season against Saracens due to illness and injury was a blow with some players like Will Greenwood not having had any match practice since the Parker Pen Final. 

London Irish have selected Mike Catt to start in the centre, as we all know he can be an inspirational player but he can also be very erratic, the last time he played at The Stoop he was truly awful, we’ll have to see which Catt turns up on Saturday. The head to head battle between Catt and Greenwood is likely to be one of the highlights of the game.

One place where Quins should have a clear advantage over the home side is a full back, LI have selected the Academy player Delon Armitage, we saw him play for their ‘A’ side against Quins last season, while he is certainly quick and talented but he doesn’t have the all round skills of Gavin Duffy. Duffy is one of the new internationals at Quins having been capped on Ireland’s summer tour.

London Irish certainly have a fast back three, and with centres like Catt and Appleford they should have centres inventive enough to provide them with scoring opportunities, so it should be Quins’ aim to stop them getting good ball and trying to pressurise their halfbacks. With a back row of Vos, Tiatia and Horstmann Quins have a good balance of experience, aggression and speed that should give the opposition some problems.

Although there have been a few changes in the scrum over the closed season Quins still have a very quick pack of forwards, there will be a difference in style between London Irish’s power and Quins’ skill and speed. Quins should also be able to put their rolling maul (truly a thing of beauty) into operation with as much success as last season. 

Quins will only have two front row replacements on the bench rather than the three that was the norm last year, the injury to Fitz Gerald is a bit of a fly in the ointment in this respect but it does allow both Sherriff and Molitika on the bench.

Looking back over the last eight games between these two sides neither side has won by more than ten points and in that time there have been two draws. We had the edge over London Irish last season having won one and lost one ZP game and finishing two places above them in the league but London Irish have made some interesting signings and have had a good pre-season build up, beating both Munster and Connacht in Ireland and London Welsh at Sunbury. Quins have made some good signings too, it is likely to be a very close run thing yet again. Both sides have a string of injuries that will probably balance each other out (LI - Justin Bishop, Declan Danaher, Adam Halsey, Rodd Penney, Peter Poulos and Doug Wheatley; Quins - Dafydd James, George Harder, Maurice Fitz Gerald, Joe Mbu and Jim Evans), it certainly shows how both sides have more depth to their squads than last season.

The weather forecast is very good (27°C, no wind, sunny) so it should be perfect conditions for a fast running game which should suit both sets of backs and might give Quins’ forwards an edge.

A lot of players will be playing in front of the biggest crowd of their lives (estimated to be 40-50,000) and for many it will be their first time playing at Twickenham, it is certainly going to be a wonderful occasion and one that may become a permanent fixture. If it lasts two more years then it will be the 100^th anniversary of the RFU inviting Harlequins to play at HQ.

Finally I’d just like to thank KevT who has provided the profiles from the start of this site, he certainly is a very hard act to follow.

Player to watch: Steve So’oialo

Prediction: Quins to win by less than ten points with a try in injury time.

London Irish:
15. Delon Armitage, 14. Paul Sackey, 13. Geoff Appleford, 12. Mike Catt, 11. Scott Staniforth, 10. Barry Everitt, 9. Darren Edwards, 1. Neal Hatley, 2. Adrian Flavi, 3. Rob Hardwick, 4. Ryan Strudwick (Capt.), 5. Bob Case, 6. Paul Gustard, 7. Kieron Dawson, 8. Kieran Roche
Replacements: 16. Pierre Durant, 17. Robbie Russel, 18. Nick Kennedy, 19. Phil Murphy, 20. Nils Mordt, 21. Paul Hodgson, 22. Mike Horak or Mark Mapletoft

 

NEC Harlequins:
15. Gavin Duffy, 14. Ugo Monye, 13. Will Greenwood, 12. Mel Deane, 11. Simon Keogh, 10. Andy Dunne, 9. Steve So’oialo, 1. Mike Worsley, 2. Tani Fuga, 3. Jon Dawson, 4. Karl Rudzki, 5. Simon Miall, 6. Ace Tiatia, 7. Andre Vos (c), 8. Kai Horstmann
Replacements: 16. James Hayter, 17. Ceri Jones, 18. Roy Winters, 19. Maama Molitika, 20. Luke Sherriff, 21. Jeremy Staunton, 22. Tom Williams