By Barbara (owns Jason) and kwin
February 3 2004

A small but intrepid band of Quins supporters gathered at the very impressive and smart Old Albanians on Monday to watch the reserves safely dispose of formidable-looking Sarries 2nd XV by 3 - 31.

Reserves games are always fun, and this was no exception. The club-house was very fine indeed, the pitch was smooth (barring a sea of mud in front of the changing rooms), and there were possibly 150 people watching.

Unfortunately I was late arriving so many thanks to Barbara for covering the first 40 minutes for me, and making this, as the cliché goes - a match (report) of two halves. Over to you - Babs...

Straight home from school, flew in to check on the offy board that tonight's game was still on, print off the rather limited team sheet, into the car and off.

The M25 was much better than I anticipated and I drove past the gates to Old Albanians at 5.25 with plenty of time for an early supper. Back to the ground by 7pm to find a fabulous modern, brick purpose-built rugby club. The pitch looked great too...well it had a load of Quins players on it warming up, so of course it did! No sign of kwin..

A quick "Hi" to Scotty who was chatting to Alex Codling who was sporting a very fetching cast on his foot. I looked up and saw a friendly face above me and decided to join Aaron for a better view and the chance of some help with names and facts.

The threatened rain had arrived and was blowing in the wind along the pitch. At least it was going to be behind us for the first half. My list of players did not include any subs and I'd noticed a distinct lack of Josh Taumalolo during the warm up. Oh well, Scotty would fill in my blanks I was sure.

The pitch itself looked in excellent nick, but there was a huge patch of mud right in front of the entrance to the stand. I kept thinking how useful a cattle grid would be there. I kept looking around for signs of kwin......... I decided I'd better get something down in case. I had a fabulous back up plan.. I'd brought my dictaphone and was going to ask the try scorers to "talk me through their tries" and then get that nice Rob Jewell to sum things up for me.

I decided I'd better make the odd note on the back of the team sheet.

Anyway, before I knew it the balcony had filled up and Ashley Rowden had started the game. Still no sign of kwin

Now I warned everyone that they would not get a blow by blow account- that's not my style. OK I don't know enough about the game and by the time I'd written it we could have scored half a dozen tries.... I did notice that Roy has had his hair cut again. I can't decide whether I prefer it really short or longer. The male reporters don't mention this sort of stuff but it's important to us ladies! Oh well, here goes:-

Within the first minute, Tom Guest, wearing No 8 scored a try which was comfortably converted by Andy Dunne. Score 0 7 At this rate I thought I'd be lucky to get all the scorers' names down, let alone anything else. Luke Sheriff came off shortly afterwards with a blood injury and Quins brought on Billy D.  Luke was back on again quickly but Bill  stayed on as Tom Guest needed treatment to a hand injury. Still no sign of kwin.....

20 minutes on and Tom was back on the pitch but only for about 3 minutes as another knock took him off for the rest of the night. 25 minutes gone and Sean Crawley crossed the line and Andy Dunne kept up his 100% record for the night Saracens 0 Harlequins14 .

No sign of kwin

The Sarries physio had been kept pretty busy, backwards and forwards tending to several minor knocks but all were dealt with "on field." He was soon back on again checking out their No 10 who was at the receiving end of a huge "crunch" of a tackle from Chris Cracknell which had us all wincing.

Aha...was that kwin I espied, walking along on the ground. Yes, I signalled frantically and he ambled up the stairs, offered to buy me a drink..... and disappeared.

35 minutes gone and Andy Dunne made a huge whippet-like run up the field but unfortunately his pace caught the Quins players out as much as Sarries and no-one made it to his optimistic pass out to the wing. This was almost immediately followed by Luke Sherriff being given a spell on the side lines to consider Mr Rowden's words of advice regarding persistent hands in the ruck.

I got a bit confused then as there seemed to be some vigorous tackling going on just to the left of me on the wing. Shirts were pulled and a player or two was taken into touch. The bit that confused me was that the ball appeared to be on the other side where the rest of the players were continuing with the match. The short squall soon blew over and normal service was resumed.

The Saracens No 1 left the pitch shortly afterwards and to say he was reluctant to leave would be an understatement. Comments from the right of me included, "throwing his toys at the physio." He certainly didn't look a happy bunny and I decided against asking him what the problem was. Wise move!

Kwin had managed to find the bar and returned looking much more relaxed with pint in hand. He then decided that he would dictate......... "Excellent show from Andy Dunne followed by a little chip..." Write that down Barbara.... Did you get that???? Luckily for kwin the ref blew for half time so he was saved........ The half time score was Saracens 0 Harlequins 14 and the opposition didn't seem to have troubled us too much. Over to you kwin.........

The second half saw Saracens start strongly, and a sustained period of pressure rewarded them with a penalty for holding on, which they kicked to make 3-14 -  which turned out to be their only score of the match. After that Quins hardly looked back.  A long run from Matty Moore was finely laid off to Dunne, who chipped over, but failed to gather.  Sarries were put under pressure, and gave away a  brace  of penalties for offside. Dunne kicked over the second to make it 3-17, and swiftly followed that up with another fine piece of play - conjuring a break in the Sarries line he legged it up the pitch, very much as he had in the first half.  This time however he spurned the pass, instead selling the fullback a sweet dummy, he went in under the posts. 

With the conversion 3-24, and we were well on top, and found room for substitutions, Bemand for Willis and young Tom Muggridge for the knackered Gomez (played 50 minutes the previous day, direct transfer from Brive to St Albans, do not pass go, do not collect a well earned  rest) Shortly after than Ceri came on and played back row. 

Sarries' heads had gone down by now and Rowden's whistle seemed a long time coming, the game was over...except that no one had told Scott Bemand who danced out from the back of a scrum, through a half-gap and away, with none other than Dunne in close support to receive the try-scoring pass. 3-31 with the extras, and finally the grinning Rowden looked at his watch and it was over.

So a pleasing team performance under trying circumstances - with no fewer than seven of the players having played in France the day before.

Some performances caught my eye: Andy Dunne had a cracker. After the game I heard two Sarries fans send over to find out his name, and nationality, and then to wonder whether he could find  any English grandparents. (Andy,  I kid you not)  It was a fine performance- two superb breaks, great speed, good kicking from hand and from ground, and big, big presence on the field. 

In the forwards Chris Cracknell impressed me at 6, with some good carries, high work rate and solid tackling. With his headband and style of play he reminded me eerily of  Vos - which can't be bad.    Roy Winters was everywhere, as normal - it wasn't hard to pick him out for out his experience, aggression and sure hands. Up front Hayter grows more an more into the part. I think he's picking up a lot from Tani - I wonder if he's studying him and his style particularly, or is it a product of JK's coaching and game plan?

In the backs Jewell stood out - especially for one run where he made 30m Dallaglio style with defenders hanging from his shoulders proving you don't have to be the size of Chesney to make an impact.   In the back three, Moore's experience showed and he had a great game - but both Crawley, 11 and the skinny-looking Brown, 15 put in very solid performances.  

After the game Mark Evans was visibly chuffed with the performance, the team, and the team spirit.  I put it to him that he must be very pleased with the way everything is going at the club at the moment - we're poised on the brink of a great season.   He agreed... but then remembered himself and observed how quickly things can change, what a great team Connacht are.. and how well they are doing.  

But all with glint in his eye.  I've got a good feeling about the rest of this season, and the more I see of the seconds, about next season as well.

15 Mike Brone
14 Matt Moore
13 Tom Allen
12 Rob Jewell
11 Sean Crawley
10 Andy Dunne
9 Ben Willis
1 Laurent Gomez
2 James Hayter
3 Jon Dawson
4 Karl Rudzki
5 Roy Winters
6 Chris Cracknell
7 Luke Sherriff
8 Tom Guest

16 Cameron Dott
17 Tom Muggridge
18 Bill Davison
19 Gavin Hart
20 Scott Bemand
21 Ceri Jones