By Prof
August 7 2002

There has been much talk about Paul Burke and the Quins' number 10 shirt. He is the obvious first choice being our highest points scorer and being one of the most accurate kickers in British rugby. Some have criticised his ability to fire the back line but how much of this was his fault? Last season the pack worked very well in the loose, especially with the rolling maul, and also in the line out, particularly Alex Codling who earned his place in two England games – one against the Barbarians at Twickenham (non-cap) and the other against Argentina in Buenos Aires – both were won and Codling received rave reviews.

The tight scrum was another matter though, at times it was under a lot of pressure and was put on the retreat more than once. Why was this? You always have to look at the front row – the first choice front row at the beginning of the season would probably have been Leonard, Wood and Dawson, but the Lions tour took its toll on the first two and Dawson never really performed as expected. Injuries happened and Ace, Fuga and Roddam were used at hooker and Starr, Douglas and Olver were used at prop. Olver, who was released at the end of the season, was a great ball carrier and made a number of runs but he wasn’t the big scrummager that I think we need at tight head.

The signing of the French prop Gomez and the Argentine prop Cardinalli will hopefully be the answer to our front row problems – it will also allow Dawson to learn from hard scrummaging tight heads and fulfil the potential that many people believe he has. So with a powerful scrummager at 3 that will put the spotlight back on the skills of Jase and Woody and hopefully that should show them in a very good light – after all they are both Lions, have both captained their countries and have almost 150 caps between them.

Hopefully the scrum will be solid and wont put pressure on the back row and half backs giving the back row (whoever it may contain from Winters, Vos, Diprose, Sanderson, Sherriff, etc) the chance to attack from the base of the scrum and give the scrum half (probably Powell or Duncombe) a lot more time to decide whether to kick, run or pass. This should give our No.10 - Burke - more time, let him have more space to run in and give those outside him the ball without a defender in their face. Burke has just been called up to the Irish training squad of 37 alongside Woody and he may end up playing in Ireland’s World Cup qualifying matches and Six Nations campaign this season, so what do we do if our most prolific points scorer is not available?

One possibility is to put Slemen in the No10 shirt, he played well in his first game in that position for us at the away game in Castres, and he is definitely a very talented lad having played a lot of games at full back for us last season. But we already know what he is like at fly half so what other options do we have in the two upcoming pre-season friendlies, especially the first one against Glasgow?

I would be very interested to see Ben Gollings play there, he has devastating pace and in the world sevens circuit he showed great skills and flair with the ball. He has played fly half in the past too. He would be a different type of player to Burke – he is shorter, has a full head of hair and would rely more on his pace. Or should young Seb Fitzgerald be tried out? Fitzgerald is the new fly half signing from Oxford University (the same source as Sherriff and Miall) – he’s had rave reviews playing for his University and he is on the books as a fly half along with Burke and Slemen.

What do the rest of you think?