By AlanQuin
December 18 2006

In common with many other clubs, Harlequins have always found victory at The Recreation Ground to be elusive and infrequent. They have won there only twice in their history and they were unable to add to that tally when they lost again in the European Challenge Cup by 20 points to 14.

As at The Stoop the previous week, it was a game that they could and ought to have won.  They certainly created enough chances.  Eight chances, at least, went begging. Poor handling, knocking on the final pass and forward passes all caused such opportunities to be lost.

From the start Bath made their intentions clear and it took only two minutes for those to bear fruit as slack defending allowed Bath, after exerting great pressure and taking the ball through eight phases, to create an overlap on their left and put Nick Abendanon in at the corner for the first try of the afternoon.  Barkley added the conversion. From then on Quins were always chasing the game and slipping further and further behind.

But errors started to creep in.  Luscombe lost the ball in the tackle and turned over possession.  From a penalty, Jarvis missed his touch by a long way!  From a most promising movement the ball came right to David Strettle and after beating two men he chipped ahead and rounded his would-be tackler only to fail to gather the bouncing ball which he knocked-on.  The first good chance of a try had gone.

Quins continued to create chances.  Their next opportunity ended as the final pass to the wing was adjudged forward and another chance disappeared.  Quins persisted and a fluid movement from a break by Abbott to Brown and on to Williams came to nothing as first Brown was taken out late and then Williams was tackled.  Complaint by Gomersall about the late tackle, which was so blatant as possibly to merit a yellow card let alone a penalty, resulted in a penalty being awarded to Bath for dissent!

A break from the base of a scrum by Jarvis saw him cross under the posts for what appeared to be a good try only for the referee to disallow it a call play back to award Quins a penalty in front of the posts and leave Jarvis an easy kick for three points. After the first fifteen minutes the score was 7 – 3.  Five minutes later, a yellow card shown to Short, the Bath lock, for enthusiastic use of the boot reduced Bath to fourteen men.  Quins failed to take any advantage from that and their attack seemed blunted.

But far from blunt was the tackle of the match, a thundering hit by Tani Fuga on the Bath captain, Zak Feaunati, and a penalty to Quins followed for holding on after the tackle.  Jarvis found a good touch in the Bath twenty-two.  From the lineout a fine break through the line and almost under the posts by Gomersall was another chance that was lost as a knock-on in the ruck gave Bath a scrum from which they cleared.

As the half hour approached Williams took a high ball and went to ground trying to evade the tackle that followed hard on the ball.  He was tackled on the ground and then penalised for not releasing and Barley duly took the three points on offer to increase the lead to 10 – 3.

At least one further chance went astray and then as time ran out in the first half Bath were pressing hard deep in the Quins twenty-two when Walshe took a quick tap penalty and threw a  long miss pass to Shane Berne on the left touchline fro the fly-half to complete the five metres to score.  Barkley added the conversion and the half-time whistle went immediately with the score 17 – 3.

At half-time Easter, who had taken a knock, was replaced by Tom Guest.  Both sides had penalty kick chances of scoring.  Barkley missed but Jarvis score and reduced the lead to 17 – 6.  Quins now increased the pressure again as they went on the attack and another chance was lost when Luscombe appeared to be tripped by a Bath player on the ground as he went for the line, the ball being lost forward.

After twelve minutes, Bath replaced a prop forward and when some ten minutes later that replacement was injured and had to be replaced, scrums became uncontested.  It was an interesting tactical replacement that followed as Quins replaced their prop, Ross, with another lock in the person of George Robson to ensure they could continue to hold the lineout.  Chances came and went for Quins as Williams was put into touch in full flight along the touchline while Jarvis mis-kicked a penalty chance from 39 metres, the ball falling well short. But almost immediately Bath was able to increase their lead from another Barkley penalty.

With about ten minutes to go Quins replaced their half-backs with So’oialo replacing Gomersall and Mehrtens coming on for Jarvis.  Quins returned to the attack and determined pressure brought them a scrum some fifteen metres out in front of the posts.  The experience and expertise which Andrew Mehrtens brings to the game was immediately evident as he received, passed, looped round and received the ball back and with a long flat, fast pass put Tom Williams in for a try in the corner.

Although the fly-half missed the conversion from the touchline, a penalty at 40 metres in front of the posts was struck sweetly and true to salvage a losing bonus point with the final score 20 -14.  Quins can now only hope to progress to the knock-out stages if they win well at Montpellier and against Connacht when the Irish come to The Stoop.  A win by the Irish against Bath would also help but Quins might still qualify as one of three best non-winners of groups.

As a performance there was considerable improvement over last week.  The backs frequently looked like scoring and the scrum and lineout were not out-played.

Individually there were good performances from Will Skinner and the front row with Fuga working very hard.  Strettle again showed why he is so highly thought of but failed to score. 

But the question which many were asking was why did Mehrtens not start at fly-half.  Jarvis has been doing well, but the difference which was made in the few minutes in which the great All Black was on the field produced the try which was created by him and the bonus point penalty kick from almost the same place where Jarvis had earlier missed.

At the post match interviews, Dean Richards was evidently disappointed.  “It was very frustrating,” he said,“ but to take the positives out of it, at least we are creating the chances even though it took us until the last ten minutes to convert one of them.  I think we probably had seven or eight chances which we could have scored from.  We did “score” from two others but the referee called us back, I don’t know what for.  He continued “The players insist that they scored but the referee’s decision is final.  It would have helped if he had actually given them.  There was one to Jarvis and one to Hal Luscombe where it was knocked back over the line.  I could see it from 60 yards away, but it must have been more difficult from close up.” he continued ruefully, “It would have made a difference.”

“It was all a little bit frustrating.  We had total domination in the scrum.  Five minutes before their first prop came off I thought that something is going to have to go in the scrum.  When he came off I asked Scotty if that was an injury or tactical and when I was told it was an injury, I was a little bit surprised.  Then actually I knew that something else was going to happen in the scrum and five or ten mutes later it did.  Sometimes you have to play the system very well, don’t you?”

“They had two try-scoring opportunities in the first half and took both but did not do anything in the second half.  The penalties we conceded did cost us.  We let them off the hook”

He continued, “There are a huge amount of positives that we can take out of today.  The fact that we demolished their scrum was fantastic.  We held our own in the lineout.  Around the park we competed well.  The fact that we created so many try scoring opportunities and played the rugby in the right areas – these are the positives. We let ourselves down by giving away penalties at vital times when we had them under the cosh and we did not convert the many try scoring opportunities.”

“We are putting ourselves in the right positions.  That pleased me. The fact that we lost did not”

           

BATH: 15. N Abendanon, 14. J Maddock, 13. E Fuimaono-Sapolu, 12. O Barkley, 11. T Cheeseman (Stephenson, 79), 10. S Berne (Malone, 79), 9. N Walshe, 1. D Barnes, 2. L Mears, 3. L Ovens (Jarvis, 50; Ward, 60), 4. P Short (sin-bin: 22-33), 5. D Grewcock (Fidler, 77), 6. A Beattie, 7. J Scaysbrook (Faamatuainu, 54), 8. I Feaunati (captain)
Replacements: 16. D Ward 17. A Jarvis 18. R Fidler 19. J Faamatuianu 20. P Travagli
21. M Stephenson 22. C Malone

NEC HARLEQUINS: 15. M Brown, 14. D Strettle, 13. H Luscombe, 12. S Abbott (Deane, 80+4), 11. T Williams, 10. A Jarvis (Mehrtens, 73), 9. A Gomersall (So’oailo, 73), 1. C Jones, 2. T Fuga (Richards, 80+2), 3. M Ross (Robson, 60), 4. O Kohn, 5. S Miall, 6. A Vos, 7. P Volley (captain), 8. N Easter (Guest, 41)
Replacements: 16. J Richards 17. R Nebbett 18. G Robson 19. T Guest 20. S So’oailo 21. A Mehrtens 22. M Deane

Referee: Andrew MacPherson
Attendance: 10,600