By NigelB
February 7 2003

Half way through the second half I started visualising the headline "Play the Midweek team again", "Quins find tremendous spirit", "The backs find their form", Who are these guys in Quins strip?", This is my third match report and my third win – am I a lucky jinx do I volunteer for more? Seriously this was never going to be a true test of ZP v S12. It was always expected that a S12 team would dominate against ZP. Furthermore a midweek match sandwiched between important ZP fixtures meant that ME needed to rest key players and whilst some may start they certainly would not finish. So why was I trudging across South London to see them play? Because I was meeting some SA friends and to watch a match for pleasure where the result didn’t matter just the manner in which it was played.

Having watched the same fixture last year I knew there would be traffic problems and there were. So much so that we arrived 2 minutes after the whistle! Got into the ground looked for the smoke bar-b-q by the West Stand and shock it was not there. I thought the smoke across the ground last year added to the atmosphere (yes literally). Wrong side for a pork roll, made do with a burger, saw Sharks go up 3-0 with a fortunate graze of the upright and took our seats. Apologies to all those people we disturbed.

Next 20 minutes the food went cold because we were so absorbed by a tremendous spectacle whilst every Quins player seemed to be playing his heart out. I cannot recall having seen such commitment by all the players. Note taking became somewhat sporadic whilst the spectacle ensued, secure in the knowledge the video was set, I chatted away to our SA friends remarking on the changed team, (little did I know that video was set for am and not pm).

During that period I saw Nathan Williams make four kicks all testing and gaining good territory. Then a piece of true magic, once again a player who management keep insisting play front row finds his true position on the wing. Tani with ball in hand looks to chip over and just misses out. During the match my SA friends remarked how frequently Tani seemed to be playing on the wing and whether this was part of team strategy to which I responded that Tani has been shown the light by his other front row colleagues.

Having missed the MWTM announce the team changes I am busy trying to work out who was playing No 5 (it was Simon Miall) in place of Codders because I couldn’t see the give away red cap.

Throughout the whole of the first half I felt the backs played as effectively as the forwards have done and continue to do. Ball was being taken deeper and at quicker pace. Unfortunately Dave Slemen hoisted a couple of kicks which did not seem to go very far. However, tries scored by Luke Sherriff and Nathan Williams gave us a very deserving 14-3 lead at half time. Significantly, Nathan’s defensive tackling was proven during that period although he did let it slip later in the match.

The second half started aggressively but within two minutes I thought Quins seemed to be on the back foot with a patch of poor scrummaging. Quins recovered and there was a nice passage of play when Dawson (at least I think it was) suddenly seemed to burst through the sharks defence and was heading for the line. Sadly Daws is not as quick as Jase, Woody or Tani and was caught, but there is an exciting prospect for the future (DL you better watch out).

We didn’t score from that move but came very close. Importantly when the Sharks came back at Quins I was again pleased to see NW put in a good hit. Nathan had a good game and for me was my MOTM. He was further rewarded with another try to push it up to 19-3. We were ecstatic! The Burger and chips had long been consigned to the bin.

Then something happened. I don’t know what, Sharks seemed to make a number of very good tactical substitutions and they seemed to raise their performance whilst Quins felt that perhaps they had done enough to coast home. Well we lost and my friends took delight in quipping “they can smell blood and are closing in for the kill” during the last ten minutes. This was a poor patch and the players did look drained allowing Sharks to run through the lines with the utmost ease.

But, as I said at the start this was never going to be an easy match and whilst the final score went Sharks favour, we won the moral victory having lead for 75% of the match and played some great attacking rugby.

Got home, went to the check the video and nothing. Never mind. I did enjoy the match. In fact the only thing that upset me was someone in the ticket office had obviously sold a ticket in the West Stand to a follower of a round ball game because the verbal garbage that came forth from that person was moronic (can’t have everything).