Now a cynic might argue that, given the way the backs have performed as a unit for most of the year, the absence of a backs’ coach is hardly going to be noticed. Indeed, some wise old owls will probably be in a state of shock that Quins had one at all.

A recurring theme of the ‘old’ messageboard gossip was the extent to which the coach influences results.

In the blue corner, we had the conservative right arguing that it was all down to the players making it happen – or in our case, not making it happen – on the field. Our problems were said to be primarily down to individual player errors and the injury toll, things coaches can’t be held responsible for - that sort of thing.

While in the red corner, the militant tendency were calling for a public hanging of the coach, preceded by a sound flogging – ‘JK Must Go’ said the banners.

Or even, from some poor confused souls, ‘Zinzan Must Go’. Perhaps because it seemed only yesterday that we were in the same mess with a different coach to castigate.

The red brigade could fondly remember 12 months or so earlier (an achievement not to be underestimated, since some of them have trouble finding their way home) when Mark Evans had taken over from Zinny to ‘do a Graham Henry’ and redeem Quins’ season.

It certainly worked then – but has it worked now?

And will it work again? Can Mark Evans coach successfully before Christmas?

The stats tell a mixed story this time around. Arguably, the remainder of the season, after ME took over, was as much up and down as the first part under JK’s leadership. Well, maybe more ‘up’ than ‘down’, since the alleged threat of Quins being relegated was averted on the field at the end of the day, rather than relying, as Leeds now must, on the forthcoming battle between the Premiership and the Office of Fair Trading. Yawn.

Despite being passionately in favour of a ring-fenced Premiership (yes, I know, you don’t agree…) to bring us in line with those other ring-fenced competitions that also breach the ‘spirit of rugby’ (like the Super 12, the Tri-Nations and the Six Nations) it has to be said that the Game of the Season, the home victory against Leeds, would not have been what it was without the presumed threat of relegation hanging over the crowd.

Quite who knew what amongst the powers that be, though, is still to be established. Did Mark Evans know we were not going down because he genuinely believed we would gain enough points to stay up or because a little bird told him Rotherham had blown it on ground qualification?

Still, back to the coaching. What were the highlights and lowlights after the change of leadership?

Well, highlight-wise, the 33-19 win over Newcastle was a good performance and produced valuable league points, as did the subsequent 40-16 win over Leeds. And, an 18-18 draw against Irish at Madejski was not to be sneezed at, with Irish riding high and at home, even though we could and should have won it.

So what are the lowlights? Rather a lot, I’m afraid. A dire performance at Bristol to throw the game away 43-27 (and that flattered us), conceding soft tries through poor defence, particularly in the backs. A terrible display of desperation-level rugby at Wasps, clearly aimed at grinding out a win or a bonus point by any means available (thrown away Barbarians-style by a reckless miss-pass from Greenwood at the death) that we lost 16-6. And a sound thrashing, albeit when it hardly mattered, away at Sale 40-11. True, Wasps and Sale were form teams at the time, but statistically the period as a whole could hardly be called a renaissance.

And was it as bad as we felt during the JK period? At times, yes it was. Particularly towards the end, when it looked from the stands as if the players had given up and were not playing with pride, passion or a whole lot else, skill included. Had JK ‘lost’ them, we asked ourselves? The final straw was the 6-18 home defeat by Gloucester, of course, our third defeat on the trot (ignoring the Sharks' friendly) and time to seriously panic about the league position. At that point, you would argue, ME had no choice but to act.

What should he have done? Don’t know - but as the old saying has it: “Do something!”. If he’d done nothing, and Quins had gone down…

Other notable league disasters before Christmas under JK were the home defeats by Irish, Bristol and Sale. But who thought at the time that Irish would be as good as they proved? In September 2001, they were being widely tipped for the bottom slot. And we lost these games by an average of 8 points each, notching up two bonus points.

JK could perhaps be forgiven the European Cup experience, since we ended up in the Pool From Hell, with Munster and Castres. But how much did the pain of those defeats affect both player and supporter morale? How big an influence did that have later, on the anti-JK thinking of the red corner faction?

Critics will recall the match at Franklin’s Gardens (13-13 draw) against the worst team I saw all season, where Quins somehow snatched a draw from the jaws of victory. Or the December 30th mauling at Watford by Sarries, a painful 39-25 defeat where the score flattered us – our worst performance of the season, making a moderate side look world class.

But have we forgotten some of the highlights under JK? What about beating Leicester in the Cup? And going up to Sale in the previous round, bringing back a great win? What about thrashing Wasps 33-13 at home, and Saracens 43-6? Not bad results by anyone’s standards.

Mark Evans’ reign did not start with a great performance either. It was the semi-final Cup defeat by Irish. Yes, it looked close on paper (27-32) and it was close at the end. A great spectacle, actually. But if you recall, we were 26-0 down at one point! It’s more Quins’ style to throw away a 26-0 lead than overcome a 26-0 deficit, yet the boys performed out of their skins to come back to 27-26, and only the luck of the Irish carried them through in the end.

But you could say Mark was lucky too (or it was one heck of a half-time team talk!) – the team snatched respectability out of the jaws of humiliation that day.

So what of the future? It all depends on how the players respond to Mark Evans as coach pre-season. And, what players we’ve got… What other coaches we’ve got, for that matter.

We are certainly going to have to have a more positive gameplan, when we decide what kind of rugby we’re going to start the season off with next August. Can’t get through the whole season playing limited, negative rugby to sneak wins and snatch bonus points, as we tried to at the butt end of this season (a fair tactic, in my view, but only because ‘needs must’ at the time). That would lose us supporters as well as matches.

Personally, I think studying some of the early and mid-season London Irish performances would well illustrate where they got it right coaching-wise and we got it wrong. But maybe that’s another article…

It seemed to me, as an uninformed observer, that the early season tactics under JK were too claustrophobic. The players seemed afraid to play, as well as being bereft of attacking ideas. Was this down to the celebrated JK theory that ‘defence wins matches’? Maybe there was a clue in his preferred, yet widely derided, habit of watching the games from behind our posts – so he could see all the tries being scored, said the wags. Indicative of checking out the qualities of the defence, maybe?

In our case, defence was losing us matches, actually, and attack was not winning us many either, aside from Burke’s goalkicking.
Or was it that JK induced fear? Fear of making mistakes. Fear that mistakes meant being dropped, as the team was chopped and changed.

JK’s decision to stay on as forwards’ coach was interesting. It was either a case of pragmatism rules – most people prefer to be in work rather than out of it, and ME was probably staring a severance payment in the face anyway – or a secret plan by ME to ‘rehabilitate’ JK in the eyes of the world and re-appoint him at some stage, when the flak had died down and the beer-sodden memories of the D-Gs had faded. Is he, in Mark’s eyes, a great coach who just had an unfortunate start? Watch this space…

Mark Evans is, to my mind, rightly popular as a first class CEO. And, I think he did the right thing (no real option) in taking over from JK during the season.

But now he has a dilemma. A demoted forwards’ coach. No backs’ coach. A new season to plan strategically from start to finish, one that he has to go into as both CEO and head coach. Lots of work, lots of distractions. Players to find (by and large, one of his strengths, I would argue).

Hard to recruit another coach from elsewhere – after all, joining Quins as their new coach seems to leave you plenty of time for skiing trips after Christmas - especially as he’s said he’s not looking to appoint one at this stage.

But, TMJ’s fabled protestations to the contrary, it really does seem to matter who the coach is. Look around the Premiership – Wasps, Northampton, Irish… Yet, is it a case of success defining coaching ability, or merely determining a coach’s longevity? Phil Davis is highly sought after, it seems, despite Leeds’ lowly position.

Next season, we will see whether ME is ‘a good coach or a better CEO’. Taking over for a brief stint when backs are against the wall is interesting, but not a true test. Running a season from start to finish, with your own chosen squad of players, is a truer test.

I think he’s a great CEO… and he may be a great coach too. Let’s hope so!

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