By King of Mediocrity
September 11 2006

Matches at HQ always feel like cup games to me so in many ways this seemed like the first day of the season. On a personal note my thoughts are with the families and friends of Jase and Roo and thank you to everyone involved for an immaculate minute’s silence. With perfect weather and a pitch which appeared to be a perfect green baize I was hopeful that we might see an open game. Glaws were without the likes of Tindall, Lamb and Simpson-Daniel but so much has been said of their kindergarten that a match-up with Quins’ older heads looked good. Unfortunately things didn’t turn out that way.

The start was lively enough and Quins’ defence was in good shape although the first scrum was pulled up for a free kick against us for not engaging. The scrum was to be problematic all day, but not in the ways that some people have feared. An early offence was called against Quins in their own half leaving the impressive Glaws 10 Walker with a simple penalty, 0 – 3, 5 minutes gone.

Some good interplay from the back row and Hal Luscombe came to nothing with a knock on at the ruck which also saw James Hayter leave for a blood injury; sadly he was not to return and Jimmy Richards stayed on for the rest of the match. I was struck with the fact that we ended with a hooker playing only his second GP match whereas Glaws could start with one international hooker and bring on another.

Quins’ lineout started well enough and Glaws unwillingness to roll away at the resultant ruck led to a penalty attempt which Mehrtens missed in an otherwise excellent kicking display. At this point Glaws seemed slightly ahead of Quins at the early exchanges although as the half wore on Quins began to turn the momentum towards their own advantage leading to Gloucester being forced into infringements and handling errors. I’d been looking forwards to seeing Califano play and true to form he has lost none of his skill and power, neither has he lost his particularly French binding techniques which led to a fierce battle between him and Ceri which I felt ended honours even.

My notes from this point get very repetitive – plenty of effort but little reward, there were an awful lot of handling errors and an awful lot of scrums which were inevitably reset. Maybank appeared to decide on the alternate penalising rule beloved of referees everywhere. When good ruck ball came Gloucester are masters of slowing the game down and their forwards were content to soak up our pick and drive knowing that knock-ons would result.

However, Quins stayed patient and kept to the game plan although I did wish that more width were used as each time Keogh or Strettle got near the ball they made yards instantly. Luscombe made hard yards all game and Abbott looks like he’s finding his feet. Unfortunately he also found some Gloucester feet and had to be subbed for our second blood injury with Gavin Duffy coming on and slotting into the Centre. A Gloucester high tackle was penalised and Mehrtens had no difficulty with the penalty from 30 yards, 3 - 3, 23 minutes gone.

From the restart Nick drove at the Gloucester defence and for once quick ruck ball came. Steve box kicked perfectly in an excellent and typically spiky display and Strettle came haring in for a net 30 yard gain. It was a real shame that Strets only lasted another few minutes before being injured as he looked lively and aggressive throughout both in defence as well as attack.

The forwards’ moves were starting to flow a little more easily, any defensive kicking from Gloucester was returned with interest by a series of Mehrtens howitzers and the pressure finally told with Davies penalised for not rolling away. A 40-yard shot for Mehrtens was taken with ease, 6 - 3, 26 minutes gone.

From the restart Nick again drove through the first line of defence and quick thinking from Steve saw a characteristic dart around the fringes of the ruck, an offload to Andre and then to Spanghero and eventually the try scoring machine that is Ceri Jones for a well-worked try on the right. A well-taken conversion and Quins led 13 – 3 on 28 minutes and at that point it was a deserved lead.

Abbot came back on after the restart but sadly it was the end of Strets’ debut as he hobbled off with what seemed to be a knee injury; I think we’ll see a lot more of him through the season; Gavin stayed on with Tom Williams then moving to the right wing. Gloucester received a penalty for not releasing which was again well taken, 13 – 6 on 32 minutes.

Quins’ pressure continued to build and Gloucester resorted to more offsides and more ball-killing but it was a high tackle on Steve that led to the next penalty attempt which Mehrtens took easily, 16 – 6 on 39 minutes. Walker missed with a similar attempt shortly after that and half time was called.

Well, so far so good. The pack was slowly exerting dominance, Gloucester’s defence had started to rely on scrambled slices and fairly obvious ball-killing such was the pressure. However, any side with as much quality as they can call on has to be kept down and sadly that was not to be the case.

Too often last season Quins seemed to lose focus in the second half and let in soft scores; only a last-ditch tackle from the under-used Simon Keogh stopped Andy Hazell from a score in the corner soon after the restart. Gloucester seemed to have forgotten that they had been under pressure just a few minutes ago and they stepped up their intensity markedly; Quins had little answer until the last few minutes and now all of the pressure was from the Gloucester pack. The next sign of this was a penalty given for offside 30 yards out which brought Gloucester nearer still, 16 – 9, 45 minutes gone.

Mehrtens’ restart was inch-perfect as players from both sides waited to see if it would make it, but Richards was sharper than everyone else and took off down the left wing. Two badly missed tackles later he had scored and Volley was clearly and very vocally not happy, a simple conversion and Quins’ ten point lead had disappeared in seven minutes. 16 all, 47 minutes gone.

Quins never lacked possession but never got beyond a handful of phases with knock-on after knock-on meaning that the backs were starved of possession. Gloucester replaced Davies and Wood with Azam and Forster ten minutes later and then Buxton came off to be replaced by Narraway but by then the momentum had clearly shifted. Another penalty came 35 yards out and the lead was lost for the last time, 16 – 19 on the hour mark.

Azam is a fine player but not noted for his raw speed; however given a clear left wing channel with no defence and a sight of the tryline Gloucester claimed their second try, conversion missed, 16 – 24 on 63 minutes. From this point on I felt that there was no doubt that Gloucester would win, it was just a question of whether we could get within 7 points. Gloucester started to show signs of the clinical machine they became in the second half of last season and four minutes later a wheeled scrum gave Forrester an all too easy score which Walker converted, 16 – 31 at 67 minutes. By this point Andre and Steve had been substituted for Danny Care and Chris Hala’Ufia, it’s tempting to think that this formed part of Glaws’ decision to go for the blindside move with Andre’s brick wall defence gone.

Job done for Gloucester, but they could not get the fourth try as Quins seemed to remember that they had been the better side in the first half. Constant pressure led to a try from Simon Keogh in the left corner after a number of close attempts and Mehrtens missed his second kick from wide left to complete the scoring at 21 – 31.

I lost count of the number of times the Gloucester loose head stood up in the last few minutes and there were a fair few missed forward passes and offsides, but, and I expect to be disagreed with here, Maybank didn’t have a bad game from my point of view. It was a scrappy, stilted affair with only a few moments of inspiration.

Why did we lose? We made too many basic mistakes, too many turnovers, too many knocks forward. The lineout was a little better and in Bortolami and Brown Gloucester have two exceptional talents, but I would still expect us to achieve 80% at the very least on our own throw-in. I have started to wonder if we can play with Nicolas and Simon in the second row, they are very similar and Jim’s lineout ability is missed.

Maybank could and should have refereed the scrum better but all things considered the scrum went well. Luscombe makes yardage every time he gets the ball, Keogh looked sharp and dangerous throughout and there is clearly a lot more to come from Strettle.

I came away from the game feeling rather depressed and worried about the season although re-reading my first-half notes reminded me that we were markedly the better side in the first half. But the simple story is that we played a home game and came away with nothing, I feel that our backs would have prospered with more ball against a very talented but callow Gloucester backline. Last year we let sides back into the game with rarely a risk of losing, but this is the Premiership and every side has the ammunition to punish us when we lapse into that mentality. We need a win soon, but the Fixture Gods have not been kind; if Deano was unhappy with the result last week this one will have hurt far more.