By The Analyst
July 21 2005

Harlequins – cigars, champagne, Miss World , so where did it all go wrong ? A club which had flirted with relegation for most of the last decade, while miraculously staying up as a permanent resident finally took the big drop last year in unlucky circumstances  

losing the lead against one of the top clubs in the dying minutes of their last game, then seeing a decent penalty chance which would have kept them up drift just wide in the last act of the season.

All those years of conspiracy theories among the embittered proletariat proved wrong as the rfu stood back and watched the multicoloured ship sink , leaving wonderful plucky warm hearted northern whippet fanciers Leeds as the only club to have been excused  relegation by official fiat. Delicious irony. While the rest of us were enjoying an extra slice of schadenfreude with our pimms , the multicoloured ones then managed to retain the bulk of their squad , sign a promising new director of rugby from France (Dean Richards ) , together with a new head coach from Australia (Andy Friend) and one of the best fly halves to tread a rugby pitch from Noo Zeelund (Andrew Mehrtens), while waving a £ 2.2 M cheque (their agreed parachute payment) in front of the bank manager

Last Season

Quins made a bad start on the pitch, losing their first 8 on the trot ; results picked up, with two tremendous wins against Gloucester (with 14 men for a long period) and Saracens achieved in the highest  style , but from that start they were playing some very grim rugby , with nerves racking up the individual error count and they never really got a decent run going.

It was a disappointment , as things had appeared to be improving, with an extremely successful 2^nd XV winning the A league the previous year .  With  the wisdom of hindsight, it had been a poor recruiting season for them, losing their 10, Burke, who had sneaked quite a few games with the boot over the years, and centre Chris Bell, who knew he was good enough to get the start but wasn’t getting the game time , going to Leeds and the funbus at last hanging them up.  Still, looking at my programme for their visit to Franklin's Gardens I can see 8 internationals starting and a further 5 internationals on the bench .

 Midfield was where quins suffered last year. Their pack was occasionally flaky at the set piece, but a young pack produced a good driving maul and their back row stuck like limpets to the ball- although support was maybe not their forte in attack, as most of the quicker back rows were in the second team .Nick Easter was one of the most improved flankers in the league, Tony Diprose had an Indian summer, and Andre Vos was a back row in himself, a complete master at slowing opponents ball and freeing up possession for his team while tackling anything that moved.

The outside backs had their moments, but the ball had a beard by the time it reached them. Evans’ game plan seemed not to involve running the ball, and Staunton was ill suited to a kicking game. He was driven deeper and deeper through the season by some terrible service from the club’s scrum halves and field position was a real weakness.  The supporters were begging for some reinforcements in a 9 shirt from about the 3^rd week. The absence of greenwood meant two centres of the hard-skulled variety , and teams began to find them easy to defend

Speaking of Evans, he seemed to prove the adage that all head coaches have a shelf life. So apparently do back coaches (after Paul Turner left)  and Directors of Rugby (whatever those may be , as a large Welshman once asked) . Evans appears to have exceeded his , and doubts over his combination of roles may have proved unhelpful (if justified)

Out go…

As far as I can see Quins have secured their squad far better than they had feared, and a year in ND1 may well give them the chance to grow their younger players through. They have lost 2 good props, Ceri Jones and Jon Dawson ( though Dawson appeared to have gone backwards  last season) , but retained Worsley and Fitzgerald (though  injury clouds Fitzgerald’s future) . Kai Horstman has gone to Worcester, but this is understandable as the existing back row plus Luke Sherriff would have seen him struggling to bench in a lower league. The kiwi lock Simon Maling has moved on as expected, and so has Ace Tiatia, something of a crowd favourite, but truly a one man disaster throwing in and a disciplinary liability.

In the backs they have lost Jeremy Staunton and Daffyd James . Staunton will come again at Wasps with a more lavish game plan and scrum halves who will give him quick ball rather than suicide pills. pills .James was past his best .

In come

Andrew Mehrtens – quite simply the best 10 I have seen since days of Barry John, Phil Bennett and John Rutherford .The complete ticket and has been pretty much since he started ten years ago – and with a South African passport presumably in view of his birth there. Quite what ND 1 will make of him is anyone’s guess, and how many tries Ugo Monye will have notched up by the end of the season I shudder to think. Ian Vass, ex Saints and more recently Stade Francais and Bedford, has been signed and Richards will hope to use him partly as a foil to Mehrtens with his strong kicking and running game, but also to use his strength and size to get Mehrtens away behind a huge pass; the secret here is whether they can get Vassy fit enough to get to the breakdown fast enough. If anyone can push him hard enough Deano’s the man, in which case the former prodigy could be right back on track.

In the pack they have re-signed Ricky Nebbett at tight head and secured Aston Croal from Saracens at loose head, a very smart pick that. With James Richards released by Tigers , Quins have snapped him up as a hooker and he and George Hayter should at least be able to produce some lineout throws which the locks can find without radar. Kevin Burke, ex LI lock playing for London Welsh last term has just been confirmed; this is a big old fashioned unit at 6’6” and a tad under 19 stone, something Quins have been missing for a while, and a classic Dean Richards signing- no pack should be without one big anchor .

Lastly, Evans has stepped up to a somewhat nebulous position of influence, leaving team affairs in the hands of Richards and Friend (a bit like Leicester, except the friend wasn’t capitalised)

Next Season

On the face of it, Quins will bump into some very big forwards next season, but should have far too much pace for most of the sides they meet. If they can deal with the first 4 games and find their feet, they should be coming straight back up. Unlike the situation with Bristol , they have kept the bulk of their squad, indeed have added a world class player to it, and unlike Bristol and Rotherham, the club is not on the verge of collapse financially .They may get the odd fright, but it is very hard to see them finishing anywhere other than first place in ND1

Also, the news is good on the season ticket front with more than 4,000 sold , and there will be the usual corporate money rolling in on big Twickenham occasions , thanks to the club’s symbiotic relationship with HQ. Indeed, the Quins support seems to have solidified if anything, and a winning season returning them to the premiership may be just the ticket

Prediction – 1^st (ND1)