I was mostly looking forward to joining the guard of honour as the players ran out, you know the sort of thing, jumping around like a demented frog cheering the Quins players and giving our visitors the cold shoulder (or any other part of my anatomy that was handy!) but unfortunately at 1.58pm it was decided that as JW (see knee) was playing, the normal 7 mile long line of very excited children would be cancelled……….someone please explain the connection!!!

The teams ran out (through my very limited vision I heard the Quins run out, but completely missed the Falcons entrance!). I then made my way very slowly (waving, cuddling, signing & posing all the way) back to a portakabin behind the South Stand to change back into my usual look (for this match I chose a very nice little black dress) and made my way back to my seat in the North Stand (passing extremely quickly in front of the East Stand of course!)

The first big news of the day was Jonny Wilkinson (aka crock) starting the game……now let me say now that this report will carry very little detail on the match itself (You were either there or you’ve read all about it in print or on the web)….Hopefully I can report on what most people didn’t hear….namely a very interesting Press conference……with the small room packed with Radio/TV and even a reporter who looked like he had flown in from the cancelled NHL season!

The opening 30 odd minutes looked like dictating the pattern of the game with dead eyed dick Jonny landing 3 penalties from various lengths/angles with Jeremy Staunton making 2 and missing a couple….. 34 minutes and tragedy for England!!!!!! Jonny goes over on his knee whilst making a tackle and is carried off in considerable pain (I missed it all of course as I was getting back into costume for a bit of a boogie at HT)..more to follow on the knee…..

First try of the day was a well worked rolling maul with George Harder peeling off and scoring near the posts and in front of the North Stand……cheering a plenty!!! Prop Jim Evans also went over as the visiting defence buckled under the strain. Staunton added the conversion and then a penalty to give the Quins there 10 point advantage at the break.

Centre Mark Mayerhofler put the Falcons back into the reckoning with a 41st minute try that was converted by Dave Walder……I missed that also, I was presenting something to someone on the pitch at HT and then made my way back to the Portakabin to don my civvies (cue more W/C/S & P)…..Quins regained control with Tani Fuga driving over after another well worked lineout/catch/drive (perhaps we should patent that!).

Tom Williams secured the bonus point deep into the second half with a skip around the last man to score in the corner; although Staunton missed the conversion he later slotted his 3rd penalty to ease Quins to victory.. final score 39-23 and up to the dizzy heights of 8th!!

Having finally said goodbye to my bear suit…..I lurked inside the Press office and only at that point did I realize that the general buzz was not about the rebirth of the Quins….nor Mark Evans replacement as Head Coach…..not even the amazing dancing of the Bear at HT!.......No!!!!! Apparently Jonny had injured his knee again…..the Perpignan knee it was called!

Mark Evans and Mike Scott entered the room and quickly it became very clear that no one wanted to hear what ME had to say, they were all desperately waiting for Rob Andrew to come and give us the news on Jonnys knee (Margaret’s shoulder, Jonnys knee….what is it with the news this week!!)

The first question on what that result meant to Harlequins drew this response from ME:

‘I have said consistently that I thought 37 points would be required not to finish 12th, I don’t think that 12 teams will get to 37 points, so clearly with 4 games to go, we would be hopeful of reaching that target, we have 4 games to go (games listed), so you do start to look at what else you might get out of the season, and I’m sure that all the teams in the bottom five are well aware, and I think that is a good thing in the way that the league is constructed and the fact that you can get 5 points for a win, we are suddenly 5 points behind Newcastle…we are only 7 behind Gloucester, who are going through a bad patch, Newcastle aren’t going through a very good patch either and you start to think about wild cards and what have you (!?) and you start to think if the Tigers were to win the HC and England get 7 places, so we’ll see.

"We have to go to Northampton next who have hit a bit of form……..but we have taken 30 points from our last 10 games, that’s pretty good form…but that it had to be as we had taken 5 from our first 8, and we put ourselves in a hell of a hole, we didn’t say anything publicly, but you get 5 points from 8 games, well you do the Maths, you’ve only got 14 games left, average 3 points a game in this league is quite difficult, but that’s what we have done for 10 games and if we do it for another 4 games we will be up on 47 points, which wont be a good season, but it will not be a disastrous one………..It wasn’t bad from a cynical team who cannot play any rugby!! (cue much laughter)…………saying that it actually wasn’t very good.

"I thought we should have won by a lot more, we should have had 3 or 4 more trys and we gifted them one with the charge down, I thought there 2nd half try was very good, well worked by them with a lovely line by Mayerhofler, apart from that they didn’t have much else, we should have beaten them by a lot more…….probably because we were killing everything and not playing much Rugby! (more sniggering)’

He was quickly ushered out of the room after expressing how sad he felt for Jonny and his constant bad luck with injuries, he did think that it was unlikely that he would retire from this injury and reminded everyone that Dan Luger played on with 2 rebuilt knees!

Rob Andrew entered and was quickly tackled on Jonny's condition (nothing to say, can walk about and will have a scan on Monday back in Newcastle) He did however have some interesting thoughts on playing the ZP through the 6 Nations, (a squeak most of us would call it!) "We just cannot continue playing through the 6 nations, its just not feasible, somebody has to look at that for everyone’s sake, the player issue that everyone is talking about, we just haven’t got any enough players to go around.

"We’ve got half a team against someone who hasn’t lost anybody and actually we have to look at the season, we have to look once and for all to stop beating around the bush, for the credibility of the league and deal with it because at the moment we are just going around in circles and its not getting us anywhere. It’s not helping Andy Robinson, England, the RFU or the league….It needs a serious look at now’ Mike Scott was asked about Robs comments and had this to say in reply ‘All the Premiership clubs agreed it at the beginning of the season, there are issues with it no doubt, but at the end of the day we agreed to do that, if Rob has an idea how we can fit the season in. Otherwise that’s the structure we have and that’s what we have to get on with"

A fellow scribbler asked about the so called working party that RA was on regarding the above subject and whether the findings had ever been published which drew this reply ‘Don’t go there!’

When asked if losing Jonny was the turning point he replied ‘I think we still had enough chances to win it, I’m pleased with the effort made by the players out there, ultimately we made too many mistakes, we had enough of the ball, enough of the game, but we made too many mistakes and if you give Quins opportunities like we did with that first try with the knock on in our 22, you know we just kept shooting ourselves in the foot, so we only have ourselves to blame. It’s just very difficult to keep patching teams up week after week when we just haven’t the best players available to you’

He did confirm that Jonny was 100% fit and had trained very hard this week.

…………Now I hear you ask where the miracle was as alluded to in the headline?..... Well I also managed to grab a word with our most controversial fan at the end of the match and bish had the following to say …..and I quote’ Fantastic, nothing more can be said, fantastic’

Harley Bear signing out!!!!!!!!