We took our seats in the North Stand and settled in to watch the game which started in an all-too-familiar way, Jonny’s kick lofted high and long giving Nick Easter time to go to the bar, buy a cheeseburger and comb his dense thatch before sidestepping the lumbering Falcons chasers and working his way into midfield. 

 Despite this, the away support had the most to be pleased with in the opening minutes of the game; Newcastle turning up the heat in the face of some sub-Arctic conditions and eventually forcing the Quins Cro-Magnon men of the front row to capitulate in the face of pressure from Ward, Vickers and Hayman.

The resulting penalty saw Jonny kick us into the only lead we were going to see all day and we were quite a happy bunch in the gathering gloom and rain. We certainly had the upper hand in the scrums to start with however the Quins fatboys like nothing more than a game of ‘up the jumper’: off they waddled and it was only a Newcastle infringement for offside at the ruck which gave Adrian Jarvis the chance to level things up at 3-3; a chance which he didn’t need to be offered twice. 

A lovely combination of grunt from our white-clad leviathans and some long-awaited flair from our backline saw the Falcons almost crash over in the north-west corner, the away support screaming at the players to make these points count (and giving the next row the hairdryer treatment at the same time) but those pesky Hairy Queens just wouldn’t give up from their fine defensive effort and denied us, mere inches from five points. 

Quins were now in the ascendancy and looking by far the most enterprising side, chucking the ball about like a red-headed stepchild and making inroads into the Falcons half until the mercurial Danny Care popped up to knock over a well-taken drop goal on eighteen minutes to increase the lead of the lads in the silly jerseys. 

It was around this point when we realised that the North Stand at the Twickenham Stoop has a basic design flaw: the roof doesn’t stop the first eleven rows getting thoroughly soaked when there’s anything like a breeze blowing. Consequently, we were alternating between shouting and singing in support of the Falcons and lambasting southern architectural design. Getting wet and cold having paid £23 each for the pleasure was not high on our list of things to do before we die. 

Jarvis was using his pack’s increasing domination and the Falcons increasing lack of patience at the breakdown to pop off two more shots at goal, one missing and one going over, giving the Queens a 9-3 lead. The collective Falcons travelling support breathed a sigh of relief towards the end of the first half after Toby Flood didn’t get up from the bottom of a ruck, lengthy medical attention being necessary before he was able to get to his trotters and once more take his place in the defensive line. Wilkinson and Jarvis then swapped a further penalty apiece to leave us trailing by 6 at the halftime break, 12-6. 

Half time saw us getting increasingly wet and cold, thanks to the frankly inadequate design of the North Stand roof (have we mentioned this yet?), and the second half was dominated by a lethal combination of this inadequate roof design (not that we’re trying to set up a pattern here), refereeing courtesy of Stevie Wonder and the dirty antics of a certain ex-Springbok, De Wet Barry. 

Our lineout was becoming a real mixed bag, some throws being lost, some being won and, miraculously, even stealing some from the hairy Neanderthal second row salmon leapers wearing those jester costumes. We were unable to put any significant pressure on the Queens’ defence though and that annoying little runty fella, Jarvis, got out the kicking tee once more to send another ball ‘twixt the posts, giving the Quins a nine-point lead. 

A raft of replacements in white shirts made their presence felt, Crazylegs Parling and Brent Wilson in particular making a real difference to a team increasingly bereft of ideas. 

It was at this point, an hour into the game, when one of the most horrendous ‘challenges’ I’ve ever seen on a rugby field occurred: Spud chipped a cheeky ball behind the Queens defence that should have seen him peel away through the tacklers in the eye of the Harlequins backline but ended up being mashed by a blatant poleaxing from Quins bully boy De Wet Barry which dropped Spud like a sack of King Edwards. 

The away support was incensed and, to their credit, the home fans didn’t look overly chuffed at such a disgusting challenge. Martin Fox either didn’t see what was going on or just wanted to clarify because he had to trot over to one of his touch judges to get the full story.

Luckily, the other official had his eyes open and was able to paint a decent enough picture for Fox to be able to send off the Springbok with a straight red card; a volley of boos and general abuse following Barry into the changing rooms. 

To the relief of the supposedly sell-out crowd, after what looked like a long period of unconsciousness and the arrival of first a stretcher then a back board, Tait managed to get to his feet and was assisted from the field of play. Jonny obliged with the kick and we clawed ourselves into losing bonus point territory. 

The assault on Tait appeared to have antagonised the Falcons and they upped their game slightly in the last quarter, mounting several raids on the Quins half, all of which were held back by staunch defending in the deteriorating conditions. 

The inclement weather also saw Slacker defeated, finally having to become fully-clothed; Steve1888 remained defiant, clad only in his birthday T-shirt and sucking on a lemonade ice lolly. But, true to form, the Falcons adopted the traditional approach to games where we’re losing with a predictable range of tactics being employed: passing the ball to a man in touch (not once, which would be unfortunate, but TWICE, which hints at poor spatial awareness) or trying to get the lardy boys to batter their way out of their own 22 like a manic Harry Ramsden. 

When all else had failed, we used the tried and tested approach of allowing the backs to commit a series of basic handling errors that would have put a schoolboy to shame, turning over ball like .... erm .... like a farmer ploughing a field full of balls. 

There was to be no further score in the game and Quins took home the bacon and Pimms. Full time saw the boys in white sung off the field by a vociferous travelling band and, for the second game in a row, steadfastly refuse to come back out to acknowledge the away support.

No doubt photograph takers and autograph hunters were well catered for outside the changing rooms. As we stood, jeans and jackets dripping with the precipitation of Southern England, awaiting our gladiators to come back out and at least make an effort to thank us for making the long trip down from the North-East, Dave Thompson walked across the front of the North Stand, looked up at us and shrugged, “Well at least it was better than last week.”  

Another away game, another defeat and that takes us to five defeats on the trot in the Premiership since the infamous 2002-2003 season. Not a nice record. 

By the way, did we mention the state of the roof in the North Stand and that dirty, Biltong-biting, meat-munching Saffie winnet, De Wet Cameunder De Roof?

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