The Gathering Storm


By kwin
December 13 2004

It just gets worse and worse: NEC Harlequins slumped on Saturday to a humiliating 19-46 defeat in the fourth round of the Heineken Cup against Swansea-Neath Ospreys I wonder whether Quins will ever make a decent fist of the HC. This is our fourth outing in that competition and it’s proving as quite as ignominious as all the other three.

Even before the game, settling into my seat, taking out my notebook and subtle pen, I sensed a strange, fin-de-siecle Cittagŕzze feeling at the Stoop – the air was thick with menace and everything seemed fair and foul, familiar but different.

Above the shabby West Stand a burnt-orange harpie of a crane towered, poised for the demolition; inside the stand the members’ bar was an empty shell already – all the old, heartbreaking pictures of Harlequin heroes gone, no longer keeping their serene watch.

On the pitch, the December gloom was too much for the tired old floodlights and, while the players warmed up, sea gulls and spectres shrieked and called, swooping low into the puddles of darkness in every corner. As I watched the squad warming up, a muted crowd filed to their seats and Mad Max burbled incoherently – incredibly, it seemed to be something about the office email address? – inaudible, unheard and unnoticed. Are other rugby clubs like this?

Then when the players ran out strangely it was Quins who took to the field first and were left waiting for the Ospreys to arrive. What’s happening in the tunnel? It’s the second time this season the opposition had disrupted the familiar rituals (remember Leicester ignoring the lines of kids?) is running on also a battleground in this strange world?


Well, I suppose it started OK, sort of, Adrian Jarvis seemed completely unworried by his big-stage Heineken Cup debut (we do seem to make quite a habit of breaking in our youngsters this way) and slotted an early penalty for a 3-0 lead.

In fact we were on top, and with the Ospreys giving away a regular stream of penalties we found ourselves with attacking line-outs inside the Osprey’s 22m no fewer than three times in the next three minutes… and bungled them all. (A delayed throw in, a ball stolen, and a knock forward from Sherriff )

Tom Williams shone in the early passages. Making his presence felt in the first ten minutes with an incisive run following an Ospreys missed touch, and moments later combining well with So’oialo taking a quick free kick, and feeding an alert Tom who made it to within metres from the line, feeding Easter who knocked on. In fact these two seem to have developed some sympathy – in the second half they were to combine again on a very clever-thinking quick throw in that the referee called back, for some reason.

An Ospreys player was sin-binned for dangerously upending Keogh and Jarvis soon made it 6-0 with a straightforward penalty (Osprey’s fans singing loudly through the kick, and Mad Max rather sanctimoniously calling them to task afterward) but from the restart the Ospreys scored: a break and clever cross-kick from the golden-booted Henson putting Terblanche away, and Ospreys had got the best of the 10min period of 14 against 15.

Henson and Jarvis traded penalties to take the score to 9-8 before a frantic three minute period running up to half time, where Henson again broke through the Quins defence for his first try of the game, converted, 9-15.

Quins managed a good restart though, and following a strong TOB, Greenwood floated a speculative cross-kick to the corner, and Osprey player was forced to carry it over for a 5m scrum. Quins scored from that with the simplest of moves, So’oialo spinning a hard miss pass direct to Greenwood who scrambled through to score on 39mins – 16-17

Which should have been the half-time score, except that, with one eye on the dressing room, a dropped ball and a missed tackle allowed Ospreys to score directly from the kick-off and leave the pitch 16-22 up at half time.

If the first half was disappointing, the second half was a rout – perhaps not surprisingly as Quins spent the best part of thirty minutes with only 13 or 14 players on the pitch, conceding a steady stream of yellow cards.

The first was Sheriff, for killing ball at a ruck, and Henson duly converted the penalty. The assured Jarvis returned the compliment to make it 19-25 at 49 minutes – and that was the last time Harlequins were to score.

Quins weren’t yet out of the game, but we were creaking when Ace and Karl came on, and perhaps the frustration was beginning to tell as first Ace let fly, and was warned, before moments later Karl punched, and M Berdon (a referee who sent off Kingston and Turner in Millau eighteen months ago) reached for his pocket.

Henson missed the penalty (what a weird kicking style he has!) one of five misses in the game, but he made amends shortly afterwards. Watching through my binoculars he seemed shrouded in mysterious Dust, that made him impervious to any tackle, and he ran through Williams to score the second of his brace and take the bonus point that Ospreys needed to keep their qualification hopes alive.

Then Ace was carded, for an incident in one of the gloomy parts of the pitch, so I couldn’t see what he did. Alas the ref could.

While Ace trudged from the pitch, I cleaned the smear from my spyglass and took a better look at the Golden-booted Henson. Sure enough the strange Dust had gone… except had it? For moments later Sherriff could evidently still see it as Henson held him, rabbit-like in his gaze, standing off Henson to intercept a pass that never came. Henson chipped through for Williams to score 19-39, the loyal Quins fans started to slink away, not even waiting to see Ospreys gallivant over for their sixth a few minutes later.

Final Score 19-47 and the stewards lined up to protect the pitch from the eleven or twelve excited kids that might otherwise have found some salvation at the end of a long day, by …..playing on it. It’s been dry for a week and the next time the pitch will be used is Jan 2nd and we’ve a policy – says Copsey – of keeping the pitch open. So what’s going on?

I retired to the press conference and waited with the assembled hacks, and other amateurs. After their impressive victory, Ospreys could muster not a single person to talk to the men from the fourth estate. Perhaps they speak only to Stephen Jones?

Quins fronted up though and, after some while, there arrived the Authority, a less formidable figure this season, annoyed, spiky and not prepared to give an inch of leeway to the ignorant journos, scoring a point whenever the opportunity presented itself.

Here comes the ‘ray of sunshine’ was the call that went out as he came into sight, and Evans didn’t disappoint
• Was he annoyed? ‘that’s one of the words’
• Was it worse than last week? – ‘Yes’

Abject, was the word Mark used, when he expanded a little, and no one argued. “Particularly defensively, we fell off tackles. In the last few games we’d made progress and conceded only 1.3 tries per game, and this time we conceded six”. Was it because it was a dead game in the competition? “No, it’s just unacceptable to perform that way at home, regardless of the context, and against a team we should be able to beat,. Winning is a habit, and so is losing - It’s set us back a long way”

The talk turned to the discipline – did Mark apply any sort of sanction to players who got yellow-carded? “Yes, I tend not to pick them” Does that include Ace? …… No answer…. That was a rhetorical question, wasn’t it? “That’s why I didn’t answer it”.

But is the Heineken Cup that important to Quins anyway, won’t the true test for the club, and the critical thing, be how you perform in the league next week? “Well”, (no point knowingly left unscored, remeber) “next, week we’re playing in the Cup”

A few minutes more of this, and Scotty handed Mark a note. I couldn’t read it, but it evidently said something along the lines of ‘Get Off’, as the conference ended abruptly and the pair strode off grimly into the dark night, with just a quick word of praise for Jarvis “he had a good game on his debut”

Where do we go from here? I went home and consulted the alethiometer. Spinning the needle from one engraved symbol to another I formed the question - Harlequin – Creek – Negative – Paddle ? and back came the answer, the needle paused and span: Try Appointing – a Director – of Rugby.


Bookmark or share this story with: