By BognorQuin
November 30 2003

The half time arrival of Lord Woodward on the pitch, along with Sir Jase and William Greenwood VC, (as well as some northern oik called Ronnie, taking his whippet for a run – only joking!), brought a tear to the eye. The Geordies might have paraded "Bill" yesterday, but we had "Clive".

Who'd call them Dad's Army now?   Our World Cup heroes (Robshew)

However, although we always knew that the post-World Cup victory euphoria would result in a boom for rugby union, we had hoped this would be in youngsters playing the sport rather than the more mature and thicker-girthed writing about it:  This was my third match report and I have never seen the Press Room so full. 

Standing room only, in fact, although most of the "professional" journalists arrived too late for Phil Davies' comments and had to desperately crib the notes of the less tardy.    By the way: I knew they were professional, because whilst I was scribbling in my best joined-up, with RugbyBird's borrowed pen, on the back of surplus Quinssa application forms (the perforations kept getting in the way!), they had laptops and used shorthand (or possibly Arabic). I also knew what was going to be the talking point in the papers today (and I was right) was that Phil Davies felt that sometimes the appropriate management technique for dealing with Gordon Ross was to put his "size 12 up his bum".

Two or three "professionals" crowded round a colleague, whom I recognised from previous conferences, and who was present at the time, just checking that the word used really was "bum" and also whether Ross had actually played a match for Scotland during the RWC (nothing like preparation!).

Unlike his "new" friends, he clearly had known where the Press Room was and what time it started. However, apart from the rude word, they were clearly more interested in finding the appropriate hook between Phil Davies' comments and whether he was "attacking" the Scottish management of his "little General", as Davies described him. Clearly the newspapers have discovered that Rugby Union is now sexy and therefore upped the budget for hacks to gather at these events, although this clearly has not been extended to research and watches!

Unlike after the Northampton match, when Mark Evans arrived during the Northampton Q&A, and had to stand at the back chomping sarnies, this time he kept us waiting for a good 5-10 minutes before he made his entrance. I expected the worst and his initial demeanour suggested I was right. It didn't improve when he realised that the performance of many before him fell below even that of a number of the players he had left behind in the Dressing Room.

 I'm sure that those who have not yet attended these events (sign up quick!) imagine it to be like those on the TV programme West Wing, where the willowy CJ deftly parries incisive probes from the assembled US Press Corps!!

It's not, unless you consider such as this to be wordplay:

Esteemed Gentleman of the Fourth Estate: "Did you enjoy that?"
Evs: 'No'.

You've probably noticed that I haven't mentioned the match yet, to which my response would be: do you really want me to??

Phil Davies was clearly impressed by his Leeds side which, he felt, deserved their result. He thought the conditions weren't that great, but they played some "decent stuff" with "shape, tenacity and desire". They also hadn't given away many penalties; until the last 5 minutes, that is! He thought they were a lot tighter in defence, particularly the Centre pairing of Synman and Davies. He mentioned that they had been trying to change their game this season and that it was now starting to work; furthermore, only Tom Palmer was now missing from their full line-up.

Mark Evans had a different perception of the game from his opposite number, and didn't think that Leeds played particularly well. "We made a lot of half-breaks…got behind them….but our ball retention was poor". He also noted that both teams played better against the wind, with Leeds better in the first half and Quins spending the last 30 minutes in the Leeds half.

Although he didn't think that the Referee had a bad game, he felt that he had given two "big calls" that could have gone our way. The first was the penalty with 10 minutes to go, which enabled Leeds to regain a 7-point lead, to 16-9. He couldn't understand why Ace was penalised at a ruck in front of the West Stand, as he had "come through on his feet, in exactly the way they are coached"; "the rules of the game are quite clear"!

Pat asks for clarification on the Laws of the game  (Robshew)

The second big call was in the period at the end when he thought we should have been awarded a penalty try, especially as Leeds continued to be penalised, even after the referee had given a final warning.

We then had another long-winded "question" from a "professional" which clearly wasn't a question, however the upside was that it did have the effect of appearing to amuse both Evs and Scotty. The gist of the non-question, it emerged, was "are you going to change your game plan?", to which Evs replied, that he changed it every game (by definition, I suppose?). However, he did volunteer the fact that he had no intention of changing Quins' playing style, assuming that this was the question that the questioner actually meant to pose! When finally pushed, he suggested that Quins "just about deserved to win".

My own view was that although you could not fault Quins' desire, if the game was still being played this morning, we wouldn't have scored that final try and a Penalty Try in the last few minutes was our best bet.

Furious Vos finds fault with his team's desire (Andy Hancock)

Time after time, we made line breaks, only for players to take the wrong decision or throw a bad final pass. For example, three minutes after half-time such a break was on. With Ugo waiting for the pass on the Quins' 10 metre line, the Quins’ runner decided to take it himself, was wrapped up in a tackle, and gave away a penalty, which resulted in Ross converting from 45 m out (6-6). Later in the game, at 9-13, after a well worked lineout on the Leeds 22 metre line, the ball came across to Chris Bell and threw a high pass to Monye, sprinting down the left wing, 5 metres out, which he had no hope of controlling.

The Leeds try on 56 minutes was a strange affair. Gavin Duffy splendidly took a high ball on our 22 in front of the posts, only to be judged to have knocked on in the resulting tackle from Rees, the original kicker. From the West Stand this looked a contentious decision, but from the resulting scrum, Gordon Ross went for the line with not a Quins' defender in sight.

Straight after the Ross conversion, Sir Jase entered the fray, and immediately galvanised a break by Ceri Jones into the Leeds 22. This resulted in a penalty to Quins, which was kicked to touch, only for Ace to throw a crooked lineout. All was not lost, however, because Quins turned the resulting Leeds scrum, and were awarded a 5 m scrum, which for some reason was totally wasted by a poor drop-goal attempt from Dunne. This appeared to be the pattern of play in the last 30 minutes, with chance after chance produced, only to be wasted by poor decision making. As discussed earlier, the last 5-10 minutes were spent camped in the Leeds 22

Camped on the line (Andy Hancock)

.However, we never looked like scoring, with the Leeds defence never letting Quins get anywhere near the try line and knocking us further and further back each time.

Ace knocked back (Andy Hancock)

It's difficult to believe that with the possible exception of Burkey, this was the same team that demolished Northampton, two weeks earlier. But the discussion about Gordon Ross after the match brought home the fact that unlike most ZP teams, we do not have international players in a number of key positions. Ben Willis has been playing quite well in the early games this season, but yesterday even  he would have to admit he had a nightmare.

Willis gets a quick pass away (kwin)

Some have suggested that Andy Dunne is a better option at No.10, however, on yesterday's performance, Burkey is not yet under pressure.

Gavin Duffy also blows hot and cold, with a tremendous try saving tackle in the second half, balanced by a number of errors.

Hot and Cold (Andy Hancock)

Although our forwards have the ammunition to break through defences, our halfbacks do not yet possess the ability to exploit possession to the full. I believe we have made advances over the last 12 months, with desire and effort not to be questioned, but we desperately need the return of game breakers, like Will and Harder, if we are to be capable of playing Heineken Cup rugby again.

 
On the back foot (Andy Hancock)

The drive back to the Sussex coast was a strange one. I'm still able to feed off last week's RWC victory, and try to convince myself that today wasn't important in the whole scheme of things.

Furthermore, I've packed the flip-flops and Amber Solaire for Spain next weekend, and look forward to airing my castanets. But it doesn’t totally ease the pain, and nor did it next door's cat's, when I finally got hold of it!!