Despite this Harlequins continued their unbeaten run to win by 31 points to 6 points.

From the very start, the forwards sought to establish their domination and having acquired the ball, rolled the maul forward for 15 metres at great pace, setting down a marker for the game. Jarvis put the ball well down onto the Blues 22 metre line. The resultant line-out produced a knock-on and a Quins scrum and from that a cross kick to the corner was caught by Horstman falling over, but he managed to get to his feet and flop over the line for the first try. Jarvis converted. 7 – 0 after five minutes.

The Blues tried to mount an attack and the first of three speculative attempts at drop goals by Dafydd Lewis went wide. Advantage was being played and the Blues had a penalty from about 25 metres and 15 metres from the right hand touch. Lewis missed.

Quins had the bulk of the possession and the territory, but time and again handling errors caused attacks to break down. Similarly, Cambridge made little progress for the same reason. They had poor possession and in the face of good defence resorted to too much fairly aimless kicking as their attacks foundered on Quins stout defence.

As the first quarter ended Quins were awarded a penalty in a kickable position but instead kicked for touch. They were adjudged to have been accidentally offside from the line-out. From the resulting scrum they were awarded a penalty and this time the lineout turned into a maul camped on the Blues try line. When the ball emerged, Scott Bemand dived over for the second try. The conversion was missed. 12 – 0.

From the restart the Blues attacked and a penalty about 30 metres out and in a central position was kicked by Lewis to bring the score to 12 – 3.

Quins continued to have the bulk of the possession and to dominate the set pieces and on 27 minutes, from a scrum in a central position about 30 metres out from the Blues try line, the ball came quickly to Matt Moore on the left and he went straight through the non-existent defence to score under the posts. Jarvis converted and with the score 19 – 3 the game was rapidly running away from the University although shortly after they scored another penalty to reduce the gap to 19 – 6 after 30 minutes.

Quins mounted further attacks, but time after time, poor handling or poor passes resulted in break down of the effort. Finally, on the stroke of half-time, a fine break through the centre from his own half by Ceri Jones found James Hayter in support on his left and he took the pass and went over for the try in the left corner. The conversion was missed, bringing the half-time score to 24 – 6.

The second half was a much scrappier and error ridden affair. Quins might have had at least two more tries had Moore not been pulled down just short of the line on one occasion and held onto a pass some 15 metres from the try line on the next occasion that they attacked. Finally, the same training ground move that had produced Moore’s first half try from a scrum was called again and was again successful with Moore again going through almost unchallenged. Jarvis converted. 31 – 6.

Quins might have had two more tries, but the final pass from Moore to Henry Barratt went astray and on another occasion the ball was knocked on over the line. By now the replacements were altering the shape of both teams and the final whistle brought the catalogue of errors to an end.

On this evidence, I do not think I would back Cambridge for the Varsity match. However, despite everything the game was entertaining and the reserve Quins continued their run of success.

Teams:

Harlequins:

15 Gavin Duffy
14 Rob Jewell
13 Tom Allen
12 Andy Reay
11 Matt Moore
10 Adrian Jarvis
9 Scott Bemand
1 Ceri Jones
2 James Hayter
3 Laurent Gomez
4 Tom Parker
5 Karl Rudzki
6 Roy Winters
7 Luke Sherriff (Capt)
8 Kai Horstmann

Replacements

16 Gareth Rise
17 Reg Dejager
18 Chris Cracknell
19 Tom Guest
20 Max Evans
21 Henry Barratt
22 Tom Wiliiams


Cambridge University Blues:

15. Ian McInroy (Scotland U21 & 7s)
14. Charlie Desmond
13. Simon Frost (South Africa U21, Natal A)
12. Jason Wright (Otago Highlanders, London Irish)
11 David Akinluyi (London & S.E. Div.U18)
10. Dafydd Lewis (Wales U21, Wasps)
9. Ben Dormer (Australian Universities)
1. Rudolf Bosch (Western Province)
2. Allan Gladstone (Scotland U21)
3. Tom Kirkman (Newcastle Falcons U21)
4. Matthew Hockin (New Zealand Colts);
5. Phil Robinson (Penguins)
6. Ben Woods (England U21)
7. Nathan McGarry (England U21, WaspsU21);
8. Eru Stewart (c) (Mitsubishi Motors, Japan)

 

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