Andy Dunne kicked 8 out of 9 conversions and after he was substituted Tom Williams added another conversion. 

Almost the whole side were ahead of the kicker as Andy Dunne started the game and immediately conceded a scrum.  However, Quins were awarded a penalty for an offence at the scrum and the ball was quickly out to Joe Mbu on the left wing and his strong running and handing off the attempted tacklers put him in behind the posts for the first try of the evening within the first minute of the match.  Dunne converted.

A penalty to Bath was kicked for points by Burton and another was missed by him as the visitors sought to contain the attacks of the Quins backs and mount their own offensive.  Henry Barratt had a couple of fine runs which ended with penalties to Bath.  Then an excellent break by Dunne and a grubber kick through should have led to a try but instead gained only a scrum.  From the set piece the ball again went quickly left and this time Joe Mbu had an easy run in for another try.  The conversion was missed, but after a quarter of an hour Quins led 12 – 3.  That became 12 – 6 when a yellow card for Kai Horstmann gave Burton an easy kick.

Down to 14 men, Quins stepped up the pace.  Once again quick passing, excellent handling and fast running produced another fine try with Mark Lambert on the end to touch down.  Bath sought to capitalise on the sin-binned Horstmann’s absence and a fine attack and good run by their left wing, Hitchcock, was only stopped a couple of metres short by a fine try-saving tackle from Barratt.

Quins were now back to full strength and shortly after the half-hour a fine rolling maul went some twenty metres but just failed to cross the line.  A scrum to Bath on their 5 metre line led only to a penalty to Quins.  From the resulting line-out a catch and drive put Roy Winter over for the fourth try and the bonus point. 26 – 6.

In a vain attempt to get on terms Bath again mounted a fine attack with their No. 8, Goodman, taking off from a scrum inside their 22 metre line and gained them a penalty just in front of the Quins posts.  Burton again kicked the points to bring the half- time score to 26 – 9.

It was early in the second half that the flood overtook Bath as in a spell of five minutes Quins scored another three tries and by the time Cracknell collected a yellow card after eleven minutes of the half the score was 47 points to 9 as first, quick following up of a long kick, caught the Bath defender inside his 22 metre line and he conceded a penalty for holding on.  The quickly taken tap penalty saw Tom Muggridge run through for the try. 

Then good passing and support saw Joe Mbu pop up in an inside channel and easily outpace the defence from 40 metres to give the former Bath player a second successive hat-trick in Zurich A matches. This was followed shortly by a fine try from Tom Williams. Nor did the second yellow card of the match have any effect on Quins ability to score tries, for within a couple of minutes a fine break from Mike Brown found James in support and he finished the score with a typical direct run.

Molitika added the next try following a good passing movement finished by him with strong running through the Bath tacklers.  Then a superb break and offload overhead to Fuga by Duncan James, saw the scrum-half put a foot in touch as he did so and the try was not scored.    But a minute or two later Fuga made sure of his try with a fine run swerving and dummying two tacklers for an excellent try which Williams converted.

Towards the end of the game Private Isoa Damudamu from the Army who is on trial at the moment came on as a flanker.

The icing on an already extravagantly decorated cake was added by Henry Barratt who capped a fine performance by being on the end of a three man overlap when Quins ran the ball from a scrum halfway inside their own half on the right leaving Barratt to go over in the left corner and bring the final score to 73 – 9

It is becoming difficult to find sufficient superlatives for the performances of this team.  I can only encourage you to come and watch them.  Admission is £5.  It was very encouraging to see about 300 spectators there last evening.  The next match is away at Sunbury against London Irish on October 4^th.   Kick of is at 7.30 p.m.

Quins continue to lead the Southern conference of this league.  The other results of the night saw Wasps beat Saracens 45 – 0 and Gloucester beat London Irish 41 – 39.  In the Northern conference Northampton continue to lead with Leicester Tigers hard behind them.

NEC Harlequins XV: 15. Tom Williams, 14. Joe Mbu, 13. Dafydd James, 12. Mike Brown, 11. Henry Barratt, 10. Andy Dunne, 9. Duncan James, 1. Tom Muggridge,
2. Cameron Dott, 3. Mark Lambert, 4. Opeta Palepoi, 5. Roy Winters (Capt.), 6. Nick Easter, 7. Chris Cracknell, 8. Kai Horstmann

Replacements: 16. Tani Fuga, 17. Alex Rogers, 18. George Robson, 19. Mamma Molitika, 20. Steven Jay, 21. Charlie Amesbury, 22. Kiba Richards, 23. Isoa Damudamu

Scorers:
Tries: Mbu (3), Lambert, Winters, Muggridge, Williams, James, Molitika, Fuga, Barratt
Conversions: Dunne (8), Williams

Bath United XV: 15. Kieron Lewitt, 14. Dom Hitchcock, 13. Spencer Davey, 12. Ryan Davis, 11. Nick Abendanon, 10. Mitch Burton, 9. Mike Baxter, 1. Laurence Ovens, 2. Dave Ward, 3. Christian Loader, 4. Will Waldron, 5. James Hudson (Capt.), 6. Dan Smith, 7. Xavier Andre, 8. Chris Goodman

Replacements: 16. Sam Alford, 17. Craig Lilley, 18. Aaron Jarvis, 19. Peter Murchie, 20. David Mascall, 21. John Gould, 22. Simon Puckering

Scorers:
Penalties: Burton (3)      

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