By Worried of Whitton
March 10 2005

After an exciting second half reversal of fortunes, Harlequins pulled themselves out of the hot water at Bath, and now find themselves “squeaky clean” and ready to face the Newcastle Falcons on SUNDAY March 13th, kick off at the Stoop 14.00.

Coincidentally there is more than one positive result against Newcastle that Mark Evans, and myself, as another closet Spurs fan, will be looking for on Sunday as they take on Newcastle United in the FA Cup.

Despite the most exciting and somewhat unpredictable run in to the end of the season, for those clubs in the lower half of the Premiership, all the pre match and most probably post match press induced “hype” centres around just one player who may or may not play on Sunday. A player who may not have an effect on the outcome of the game but with the National side on the ropes the National press are firmly focussed on the return to match fitness of ‘”Wor Jonny”. His guardian Rob Andrew, has stated earlier this week that there are no guarantees, “ we won’t be rushing him back before he’s ready”, but it is clear that Andrew wants him to pay in their tough Heineken Cup quarter final against Stade Francais in Paris at the beginning of April. The best known number 10 has been back in training with the Newcastle squad signalling that his recovery from his knee medial ligament is almost complete, and he was the water boy in their last match against Gloucester. It is very probable, that he will have place on the bench against Harlequins with the prospect of a second half run out, and a longer period of play against Bath. Rob Andrew stated on Thursday that “ … He’s done everything with us this week, including live contact and kicking, so there is every chance he will take some part.”

Rob Andrew announced his team on Thursday and has made four changes from there last Premiership match. With the England Sevens squad departing for Hong Kong on Sunday evening, Rob Andrew is able to call upon Matthew Tait and Phil Dowson, but surprisingly both are named amongst the bench replacements, the reason being is that they’ve not trained with Newcastle all week and Andrew prefers to play a team that has trained together all week. Their places have been taken by Ollie Phillips and Semo Sititi. Phillips will start on the right wing with Tom May moving to cover outside centre. Iain Peel returns as Captain at loose head prop. Joe Shaw returns at fullback while Dave Walder plays at fly half replacing Mark Wilkinson. Incidentally, Walder currently has the best percentage kick record in the Premiership, at 92.8% (13 from 14), Jonny Wilkinson is on 74% ( 37 from 50) whilst our own Jeremy Staunton has hit rate of 76.8%. (53 from 69)

Newcastle will also be without their “Southern Star” Matt Burke who is recovering from a knee injury and Welsh Hairdressers’ Champion Colin Charvis who is nursing an injury to his foot. In addition Epi Taione is currently suffering an arm injury, and Newcastle also have a further five players out through injuries and illness. International call ups have also depleted their line up with both Jamie Noon and Stuart Grimes respectively called up for Six Nations action at Twickenham and Murrayfield this weekend.

Newcastle will have Premiership rugby to look forward to next year. They currently sit in seventh place with 40 points above the “ME” safety net of 37 points. Although they are still in the European Cup, they will want to improve their domestic position to ensure an automatic entry into next years competition, and therefore they too will want to take maximum points for this game.  Their recent form however has not been great, and they will still have their 83-10 trouncing by Leicester still fresh in their memory. They have only won one of the their last four matches, and that was the narrowest of wins 29-28 at home to Wasps, and have yet to win away from home this calendar year. In their last match they played out a 27 all draw against Gloucester. In their match back in September 2004 Falcons squeezed a 22-21 victory over Quins to go top of the Premiership.

Harlequins will not be announcing their team until Friday; however we already know that they will be without Gavin Duffy who will be in Dublin with the Ireland Six Nations Squad and sadly James Hayter who is suffering from the groin injury that he has been carrying for a few weeks now. Scotty did not announce any other injuries so one assumes therefore that, apart from the known longer term “outages” Mark Evans virtually has a full squad to pick from. I doubt that there will be much change from the side that beat Bath two weeks ago. One assumes Tom Williams will start at full back with the centre pairing of Deane and James. On the wing I assume it will be Keogh and Harder, with Monye on the bench.

Those of us who were at Imber Court, watching the “A” match against Wasps will be relieved that Van Hoesslin, and Tiatia have recovered from their clash of heads although I expect both will be on the bench, alongside Arwel Thomas who put in a very reasonable performance that night.

Whilst there has been some controversy with Scotty’s Statistics over the past couple of weeks, one important statistic should not be over looked. Roy Winters is poised to clock up a century of Premiership appearances if he plays this weekend. He has played 37 Premiership games for Bedford and the remainder at Quins. I expect Roy will start on the bench but will come on in the second half. If and when he does we should give him a huge ovation. Congratulations Roy!

The omens look good for Harlequins, who have taken full advantage of their status in all of their ZP games this season that have been played on International weekends. Despite Will Greenwood’s injury, and Gavin Duffy’s call up, to date Harlequins have won all five such matches this season and collected 22 league points, out of their current total of 30 points. In addition the Newcastle Falcons forays down to the “deep south” have not been that successful, they have not won at the Stoop since September 2000 when they narrowly won 20-18 but Harlequins have won seven of the last nine meetings against them. 

A win on Sunday will go a long way to meeting the Mark Evans goal of 37 premiership points, and a home win is certainly achievable this weekend, but as we know to our cost it is the team that turns up on the day. In addition we need to factor the results of the other games that will affect us.  Down in the lower half of the premiership all of the other teams are playing away from home this weekend. The results to look out for, which can affect our league position on Sunday night  are;  Leicester v London Irish who play on Friday night; Bath v  Worcester and  Gloucester v Northampton on Saturday; and Wasps v Leeds on Sunday.

 

Come on you Quins !  

 

NEC Harlequins:  to be confirmed Friday March 11th

Newcastle Falcons: 
15. Joe Shaw, 14 Ollie Phillips,13 Tom May,12 Mark Mayerhofler,11 Michael Stephenson,
10 Dave Walder,9 James Grindal,1 Ian Peel (c) 2,Andy Long, 3 Micky Ward, 4 Luke Gross,5 Craig Hamilton, 6 Mike McCarthy,7 Cory Harris 8 Semo Sititi
Replacements (from):
James Isaacson, Stuart Mackie*, Galo Alvarez Quinones, Geoff Parling, Phil Dowson’, Hall Charlton, Lee Dickson*, Jonny Wilkinson, Toby Flood*, Mark Wilkinson, Mathew Tait.’
* selected for the England under 21 squad for Friday's match v Italy
‘ selected for the England Squad for Hong Kong Sevens

Match Officials:
Referee: Ashley Rowden
Touch judges: Ashley Reay, Brian Campsall
Assessor: Gary Welsh