Despite the inclement weather the crowds were in buoyant mood as they soaked up the pre-match atmosphere. The home spectators seemed confident that the Harlequins, spurred on by a much improved performance in Newcastle the week before, would find their first home win of the season and their first 4 points on the league table. A win would push the ailing Southwest London team up out of the doldrums as far as ninth in the Premiership, and more importantly bolster the team’s confidence before heading to Worcester next weekend. For their part, Bath were looking to build on their victory against Worcester at Sixways last weekend and improve on their table position.

At five minutes past the customary Three o’clock Bath ran out to a vocal away support, but the reception Andre Vos received as he led his team out immence. It was never going to be a classic encounter with slippery ball and pitch conditions adding to the fact that both teams were desperate to put behind them difficult starts to the season and therefore fight hard for those 4 valuable points. Bath’s hunger for dominance was immediately apparent as they attacked hard from their kick-off. Quins countered well, showing marked improvements on their last home performance, but it was Bath who enjoyed first blood as they pulled away 0-3 after 5 minutes courtesy of a penalty from the boot of Ollie Barkley. However, Quins quickly bounced back and Jeremy Staunton, on his debut as a member of the starting XV at the Stoop, levelled the scores four minutes later. Bath mounted a spirited recovery and almost enjoyed a 6-3 lead but for a misjudged penalty from Barkley falling short of the mark. Both teams continued to probe each other’s defensive lines, desperately looking for a way to break through but ball handling errors from both sides turned this into a stuttering affair. It took an interception by Tony Diprose to finally break the deadlock.

Deadlock Buster (Robshew)

Diprose passed out to Simon Keogh who, to the momentary horror of the home crowd, chipped it forward. The Irish winger was then in a flat out race for the try line with Bath’s Alex Crockett, but it was Keogh who came out on top, scurrying down the wing and almost falling over the ball to give Quins a five point advantage. This was quickly converted by Staunton to make the score 10-3. Going into half time with a 7 point margin would have satisfied club and supporters alike, and but for a second missed penalty attempt by Barkley it looked like the Quins were safe going in at the break. However, the storm clouds that had been trundling across the Stoop all afternoon finally broke, and on the stroke of half time Bath debutant Keiron Lewitt ran the ball in on his first touch from a well executed pass from Feaunati via Barkley. While that was Barkley’s only contribution to that score – he missed the conversion that followed – Bath entered the changing room at the break just two points adrift and keen to continue.

Half Time Entertainment (mind the grass!)  (Robshew)

The storm that broke at the end of the first half turned into a monsoon in the second. Seemingly thrown by Bath’s late-half score, Quins looked unable to regroup and rally at the restart. As with the first half, Bath attacked immediately and the home team soon found the visitors camped on their try line, looking hard for a way in. Their search did not take long, and a try attempt was disallowed only by a TV replay. Quins, seemingly awoken by this, defended the Bath attacks well and soon pushed the visitors back. However the visitors were finally rewarded for their patience and pressure, with Chris Malone slotting through a drop goal and allowing Bath to take a 10-11 lead.

Walshe gets it away smartly. Quins worry.  (Robshew)

Quins then suffered what could only be an attack of sentimentality – for the possibility that it could be anything else is worrying in the extreme. Presumably as a mark of respect to the Premiership being 1,000 games old the home team decided to put on a display of “Quins of old”. In addition to a demonstration of out-of-hand kicking, which at one point found its mark perfectly in the arms of one of the Bath back three, the crowd was treated to a display of considerable loss of power in the pack. This was remedied after a period by several tactical substitutions, with Tani Fuga and Maurice Fitzgerald joining the front row in place of Ace Tiatia and Jon Dawson respectively – although Dawson was soon to rejoin the fray after Fitzgerald suffered a blow to the head – and Simon Miall departing the pitch in favour of Roy Winters.

Cavalry (Robshew)

Quins defended, but Bath maintained their pressure and were finally rewarded with their second try of the afternoon with prop Matt Stevens setting up Andrew Higgins to push Bath 10-16 up. Ollie Barkey’s luck finally changed – albeit briefly – and he managed to add two more points to Bath’s account via two bounces off the posts. From there on it was a matter of kitchen-sink attacking from the Quins and lead-defence from Bath. Maama Molitika and Daffyd James joined in the attack with less than 10 minutes on the clock but not even a Lions-class centre could divert the floundering home team from the inevitable. It was a scrap royale but Bath left the pitch the better of two mediocre teams.

Bath coach John Connolly stated after the match that he was happy with his team’s performance in what were difficult conditions, simply commenting with a wry smile “well, we won”. He went on to elaborate that the number of late changes he was obliged to make to the Bath starting XV had been some cause for concern for him, with some players either playing out of position or making their first team debut, but he was looking forward to the selection headaches he would be suffering in the coming weeks, especially concerning his back line.

Such headaches may too be suffered by Mark Evans, but not necessarily for the same reasons. “We didn’t play in the second half” was his candid response to the question as to where the match was lost. “You’ve got to take your chances in a tight game like that and we didn’t. We got punished for that. [We got out-muscled] and the scrum started to go. Maurice came on and did help, but he got knocked out. Our line outs went from being very good to very poor in a half... Coming off the back of a pretty good year I still think we have a better squad [than we did last year but] we’ve stopped doing well the things that made us into a good team and we need to sort that out. Morale is very good, but to an extent [the team’s] confidence has taken a knock and that is when you’ve got to front up mentally. Worcester is a big game now.” Indeed it is.
 

Nope, didn't notice him.  (Robshew)

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