HQ: Well Mark, last time we did this you said you wanted to see us in the top half of the table;  a couple of young forwards come through; have a bit more depth and put a thousand on the average gate. Pretty close to mission accomplished this season?

ME: Yes. The World Cup really hammered our gates for the first two, three games. The average crowd without those games, including today’s sell-out, is about 11,400. Our average crowd will drop overall by about 100 to 200, but I think you have to say the World Cup represents exceptional circumstances, particularly for this club and where it is located. An awful lot of people went to France.

Certainly we are top half; Robshaw, Robson and Guest have come through and I’d like to think that without injuries one or both of Lambert and Rogers would have also come through. That’s a pretty good season really, all in all.

HQ: What’s your take on why the team suffered such a mid-season slump?

ME: If you looked at the schedule before the season started, you didn’t have to be too bright to work out that we had an opportunity to get off to a good start. Four of our first six games were at home, albeit one of them over the road at Twickenham. In most seasons in this competition, a good start gives you massive insurance. You’ve got points on the board. We won the first four home games and got 18 points (but) we played very poorly down at Bath – the only game this year where I feel our forwards got well beaten – (after) a poor performance up at Newcastle. They were without their World Cup players. You really thought we should have won that. Although it looked like a good start, actually we could have gone five out of six.

Then you looked at the schedule with the Heineken Cup and some very tough games in the league. If our Heineken Cup campaign didn’t get off to a good start the last three or four group games were going to be difficult. Having played quite well in Paris, against a top class European team, we somehow contrived to not beat Cardiff in a game we completely dominated and the Heineken Cup is gone for another year. If you don’t win your home games, forget it.

Then people start rolling out runs, you know, we haven’t won for so long - but if you look at the league, which we said at the start of the year was our number one priority, I don’t think we went more than two games without a win.

We then got into a bit of a rut I think, which young teams and teams that haven’t been together long sometimes do. It becomes difficult to get out of that. Things didn’t look great. The performance fell away as well, not just the results.

Then there was a sea change. I think we touched bottom in the first fifteen minutes, ironically against Sale, up there in the league. We looked like we had never seen a rugby ball before and you think “oh my word, this is going to be painful” and actually we came out of it with a bonus point. That just seemed to flick a switch. Dean made some brave selection decisions and we just got on a run. Sarries away made people think “hello” and the Gloucester game was one of the best rugby games I’ve seen for a while. We played really, really well with a lot of spirit, bravery and gusto.

You go into the last four or five games and you’re up there (in the table). In that position, a lot of adrenalin starts flowing and the way you view yourself changes. It’s a lot easier.

HQ: Looking at the current “public” list of signed players for next season there is one glaring area that needs improving (the 10) and another couple – lock and centre – that could use some help, together with a general increase in the strength in depth. Would you agree?

ME: With Nick Spanghero leaving (I’m not sure if he’s retiring or going back  and playing one more year), although with Kohn, Percival, Evans and Robson we are not by any means weak at lock, also given that George Robson is also viewed long term as a six, we probably will look to make an addition in that area.

We were slightly over-egged at eight with Nick and Tom and Chris. Three guys in the squad, all of whom really want to play eight is probably too many, particularly with a fine prospect, Chris York, coming into the Academy and another one a year below him in Jo Trayfoot. I think that explains why we felt Chris was probably better to look elsewhere.

With Jarvo going to Bristol, clearly we are short a ten. We have to sign a ten and we will (See Nick Evans signing! HQ).

I’m not so sure about centre. Tiesi is a good signing. He’s an out and out thirteen. In that sense he replaces Hal. You look at what Dave Strettle and Ugo Monye have done at 13 this year though and you think well, there’s a lot to be said for having that type of pace in your outside centre channel. I don’t think either of those two are stop gap thirteens. I think they can both play well in that position.

Given that we have three out and out twelves in Tosh, Jordan and de Wet, I am not sure we are short at centre actually.

Simon (Keogh)’s replacement is probably Seb Stegmann or Charlie Amesbury. Although Charlie has played a few games this year and developed a lot, he’s spent most of the year at Esher. When he’s had a chance he’s done really well.

I think you have got to look at the back four from thirteen through to full back as a piece and look to see whether we’ve got enough balance there. We may well make one more signing in that back four area.

HQ: By my reckoning we now have 10 first team squad players for next season that have come through the Academy system at Quins. You have to be very pleased with that? It also seems to have had a very positive impact on team spirit, with so many players coming through the system together over several formative years.

ME: When I arrived eight years ago, one of the little internal targets was to say that in ten years time we wanted 50% of the squad and I do stress squad, home grown.

I think this year we are at something like 38%. Ironically, of the run on team (starting fifteen) some weeks it’s been closer to 50%. We want to supplement that with other young English players like David, Danny, James, Olly and Chris so that we are not just 50% home-grown, but 70%, lets say, English - the majority of which are produced by our youth development program.

That group in the team at the moment: Brown, Robson, Robshaw, Masson, all joined the team in 2005. Some have been here even longer. Some years you have a really good crop other years there is hardly anybody. In Jordan Turner-Hall’s year he was the only guy we took on. We didn’t think anybody else in that year group was good enough.

We start with big groups of thirteen to fourteen years olds and the aim is by eighteen to have three, four or five of which you would hope half will come through to the main squad.

HQ: Looking at the current Academy players, would it be fair to assume that it will take at least two more years before the next wave are ready to break through into the first team?

ME: Without talking them up before they have done anything, we have big hopes for this year’s intake. It’s very unusual for them to come through in year one. Jordan did, but it’s very unusual to come in the first year out of school. It’s not that unusual to come through in the second year, certainly for a back. You just don’t know. The point is – what do you produce over a ten year period?

I think we’ve made some strides. When you think that Nicky Duncombe should still be playing for us, I still haven’t quite got over the fact that Chris Bell left and Anthony Allen got taken from us purely by a cheque book, there’s three other Academy products who, in my opinion, should be in or around the first team. Of course, whether we could have accommodated all those centres or whether it would have blocked somebody like Tosh, who knows.

Some of the backs joining next year like George Lowe and Sam Smith, if they are as good as we think they might be, it might not take them that long. Their problem will be there are some very good, young players already in the team!

HQ: Why did we withdraw from the London Double Header as a revenue partner?

ME: Four years ago the revenue the London Double Header generated was such that it was quite a compelling argument to give up a home game every other year. To be honest, I thought it was a very good idea in terms of generating a kick off event for the season.

Over time the LDH revenues have been pretty much flat, while the revenues generated here on match days have increased with the increase in capacity. It became a real marginal call. You have to enter into a two year deal, otherwise it’s not fair, and I was looking down the line  to next year when the EDF will no longer be with us and I was a bit nervous about taking a home game away from the Stoop before I knew what would replace the EDF.

On balance I decided we would step aside. The other three clubs came back to us and said: “will you still play?” and we said we would be happy to.

HQ: What would you consider to be progress next season? It looks like it will be a very tough league. There doesn’t seem to be an obvious relegation candidate like this season. No obvious “easier” games.

ME: Yeah, very tough. It will be like last year and the year before, when we went down. I don’t like setting specifics but I think it’s important this year – and we’re not there yet – that we qualify for the Heineken Cup, start to put a run of Heineken Cup qualification years together.

If we could do that next year too, that would be three. You start to become perceived and you start to see yourself as a regular participant. That’s hard for English clubs. Look at Irish and Saracens this year. They have done terrifically well and look like they are not even going to be in it next year.

Whereas eleven of the Magners League get in, only six of the strongest league in Europe make it. There is no doubt the Guinness Premiership is the strongest league in Europe depth-wise. I’m not saying the top Magners and French teams are not as good, of course they are, but there is not another league in Europe where the eighth, ninth, tenth teams are anywhere near as strong as in England.

So, we need to be in the Heineken again and I would like to think that we will reach a knockout element of one of the tournaments, be it the EDF – that will be hard because we have two away games, Heineken - although that will be very difficult because of the new seeding system, or getting into the playoffs in the Premiership. That’s a pretty challenging target, but I do think we are capable of getting close to that next season.

I don’t think you should say we need to win this, we need to win that. The competitions we are  in are essentially all cup trophies at the end of the day, even the league. That’s fantastic for growing interest, having big days, events, I’m all for it, but what it means is you could have a really good year and not win a thing.

HQ: Are you worried at all about our ability to deal with International Weekends? They used to be seen as an opportunity for Quins, but these days we could lose a lot of key players to England call ups. Will the squad be deep enough to cope OK?

ME: When you look at the people who might be in the thirty two for England, I think Danny Care might be, but we’ve still got Andy and Steve. Dave Strettle almost certainly will be, but we’ve got Ugo, Tom, Charlie and another signing – I think we’ll be fine.

We might lose Nick Easter, we might lose Tom Guest, but I think it is unlikely we will lose both and I think that’s quite important. Although I think he is close, I don’t think we will lose Chris Robshaw yet because there are such a huge number of back row forwards around in England.

We might lose three. I think we are more likely to lose players to the Saxons. Will Skinner might be a risk, even at the full level actually, but we’ve just signed a specialist open side in Neil McMillan for exactly that eventuality. So I think we are OK.

I hope they do get picked for England. I think it’s good for the Club, great for the players. We need to show we are the type of club to come to and you can gain English recognition. Even more importantly, do it on the back of a good team performance.

HQ: Will we be better equipped to deal with the Heineken Cup (assuming we qualify)? This season we just didn’t do ourselves justice in the competition.

ME: Coming at it from where we are at the moment, which is the lowest seeded group, it’s a momentum competition. I feel strongly that if we had beaten Cardiff, frankly we should have buried them, we would have gone on and beaten Bristol in game three and we’d have been there or thereabouts. That’s how the Heineken Cup works for a challenger team, which is how I would describe us now.

If you are an established Heineken Cup team like Munster and you lose your first game you say right we’re going to win the next five and it’s the whole focus of your season.

There is no way the Heineken Cup will ever be the whole focus of our season. The Guinness Premiership is such a huge competition for us, whereas in France the (top) teams know they will be in the top four or five. We don’t have that luxury.

We are a challenger team at the moment and I just feel that at some stage we will have a break through year. Maybe we’ll play at home in our first game and win, nick a bonus point away and then win game three. Suddenly you’re thinking “we’re in it!”. I don’t know when that’s going to happen, but that’s how you break through in the Heineken.

HQ: Time to talk money, if we may. There is big funding on its way to Sarries, while some other clubs are said to be feeling the pinch financially. Where do we sit in all that?

ME: Not as good as some, not as strong financially as Leicester, Gloucester or Northampton and not as deficit funded to the degree that somebody like Wasps is. They just declared a loss of £2.4 million in their accounts in a year when they won the Heineken Cup. We are not in the position where we could finance that kind of deficit, even for one year let alone a number of years.

We have a model that says we try to work on operationally breaking even or making a very small profit. However, we are quite heavily indebted because of the building and we don’t make enough profit to cover all our liabilities in terms of financing. So we do need funding, still, but nothing to the degree of one or two other clubs.

We are somewhat in the middle in that sense, however, it’s no coincidence in my book that those three very strong clubs financially are all clubs that own their own ground.

We are along with Bath, who have got serious issues in terms of capacity, Sale who have similar issues and ‘sort of’ Bristol, although their situation is a strange one. It’s their traditional home, but they don’t own it any more. It has all the emotional attachment you get from having played somewhere a long time. They are having to move out to develop it.

That’s the key. I look around Europe and I think that if you are really going to be a player you are going to have to own your own ground and have at least 15,000 capacity.

Leicester, in their first phase, are going to 23,000. Munster are going to 26,000. Ospreys, who I think are going to be a big brand have already got their 20,000 seater stadium. Gloucester are out to 17,000. The gap’s getting bigger between the clubs who just can’t seem to get their crowd above 7,8,9,000 and some of the big European clubs.

You can see where all this is going and not all the English clubs are going to be able to compete. Some clubs in England are going to say right, we are really going to compete hard in the Guinness, but actually I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to compete with the biggest of the Europeans.

Dublin is going to be massive, absolutely enormous. It’s the only city in Europe with over 1 million people in the area, who don’t have a professional football club. They could be mismanaged for years and they are still going to be huge!

Our task is to keep our model going which is: build, grow the crowd. Get it close to capacity and build out. Get it close to capacity on the higher level and build out and so on. We started with a crowd of 3,000 and a capacity of 7,000. We got it to 6,000 and we built to 8,500, just temporary stuff. We got it to 8,000 and we built to 12,500. We are at 11 and a bit - 11,500 next year and I’m very confident we’ll get the capacity out to 14,200 the year after. Then we’ve got to get the average crowd up to 13,500.

The advantage the English clubs have over the Celtic clubs is that if you’ve got a crowd they will come to the Guinness and the Heineken – 14, 15 games a year whereas at Thormond Park they’ll come three times a year.

The French might just get so huge you’ve got to work on the principle that they can only put 15 blokes on the field at once. Alright, your second team might be a lot better than ours but our top 22 is just as good as yours!

That’s our model and we’ve been pretty consistent. Eight years ago I said you need a great youth development programme, a big crowd and a big stadium. Those are the principles if you are going to position this club amongst the elite of the European game.

Make no mistake, in ten years time all the international players, from all over the world, will be playing in England and France. Given the time zones, you could make an argument for making the non-international circuit based in the three big markets – England, France and South Africa. Australia, I honestly think they have had it; New Zealand – too small. Wales and Ireland being so close will be able to keep their two or three or four teams going, almost piggybacking England and France.

HQ: Looking at the salary cap in particular for a moment, does the new £4 million cap change anything for us in real terms? Does it alter our relative competitiveness in either the GP or Europe?

ME: I think there are signs that one or two clubs are beginning to cut back on their spend. Newcastle. I think Bristol are going to find things pretty tight for a couple of years while they are at Newport. Leeds came up this year and quite openly said look, we’ll pay what we can afford. If that means we are not competitive, so be it, we are not going to bankrupt the club. I have a lot of admiration for that. It takes a lot of guts, but they’ll go down with their club intact.

We are still not one of the bigger spending clubs because if you spend money you haven’t got you have to finance it like Wasps do, or borrow from the future, which in the current economic climate is difficult and very expensive.

We’ll basically carry on doing what we think our model can do. On field success is what it’s really all about, but people who say the team comes first and then the money will flow actually don’t understand the economics of this sport, in this market, in these stadia.

If we sold out the Stoop next season for every single game, which I don’t think we will do, the effect that would have on our income stream to enable us to finance increased spending on the team is relatively small. Now, if we had a stadium of 15-16,000 that would be different, but to get there you have a significant capital expenditure, which you have to finance.

HQ: In this locality, it looks like you will leave a bigger building legacy than the Romans! What can you tell us about the new South Stand? When will it be open, seats, standing, boxes etc.

ME: I really hope that something will be up for September 2009. Whether that is the end solution at that end of the ground is probably unlikely given the current financial situation. We have a contingency plan. I am absolutely sure we need to get the capacity up for then. We have planning permission for that end of the ground and we will need to get something done. We need to get past 14,000 and there is a way to do it, without having a huge Capex.

We are still working on a scenario where we build it, have a rental arrangement with a partner that would finance the Capex and I would still love to pull that off and I’m sure that will be the solution in the long run. Whether I can pull that off for September 2009, I’m not so sure.

HQ: Can you update us on our partnership with the RL team. Two years into the relationship is it where you expected it to be? Is it likely to deliver your long term aspirations when you did the initial deal?

ME: I think rugby league is a tough sell in this market and, if I’m honest, it’s not grown as quickly as I expected. I think there are a whole host of reasons for that, but I wouldn’t want to talk about somebody else’s business.

From our point of view, it isn’t a drain on us, it doesn’t divert our attention, there are one or two very small cost savings in terms of shared facilities. However, I think the jury is out really and will be for some time, about whether you can make it viable long term or whether its going to be like a few rugby union clubs in the South of England and will require long term patronage.

HQ: Finally Mark, how does the end of the Long Form Agreement (LFA) affect the power balance between the clubs, the players, Premier Rugby and the RFU.  Will the end of the LFA lead to an end to relegation?

ME: No, that’s part of the agreement. Relegation will be a fact (or at least as many years as the new agreement runs).

I think it will give England the preparation time that international teams require. I don’t think its any coincidence that England tend to do rather well at World Cups when preparation time is uninterrupted and quite lengthy. I think they also benefit at World Cups by playing in such a competitive league week in, week out.

I think it gives Premier Rugby a massive opportunity, because the commercial rights are now separate so it can find out over the next ten years what the commercial value is. That can only be a good thing for the league.

I don’t think the public or the players will notice an awful lot of difference to be honest. The England players will miss a few more games, but it is only a few more.

I think peoples’ attachment is to their team rather than to the particular individuals who happen to be in the shirt on a particular weekend. The experience of Northampton and ourselves shows that if you do build that affinity with your fan base, they will follow you through good years and bad.

HQ: Thanks Mark, we really appreciate your time and insights!

ME: No problem!

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