By Ralph
December 27 2004

After three bitterly disappointing cup results in recent weeks we travelled to Vicarage Road hoping to kick start our season again and regain the momentum built up by three wins on the bounce before the Heineken cup break. Appropriately enough we were to start the second half of the Zurich Premiership campaign at Sarries who helped restore confidence in our abilities when the came to the Stoop in November and were frankly humiliated by an in-form and on fire Quins team. I don’t think anyone was expecting a repeat performance this time, which is just as well since what we were treated to was a long way short of that standard.

Boxing Day is a strange day to be watching rugby, but Sarries were making the most of Watford FC’s restrictions on them by trying to create a festive atmosphere with free mince pies and Christmas hits playing over the tanoy. They also seemed to have competition after competition run by their man with the mike and I was beginning to think that every one of the 10,000 plus crowd would be walking away with a gift of some description. All I really wanted though was a four pointer for Quins and the merest hint of some breathing space for the oncoming relegation battle. It wouldn’t even need to be a convincing performance to make my day as long as we came away with the lions share of the points. The Sarries mascot was obviously thinking along the same lines since, when asked pre-match by the MWTM to predict the score he cheerfully went for 32 – 18 (to Sarries of course) and was obviously setting himself (and us) up to enjoy a feast of exciting, running rugby with plenty of points scored at both ends. If only.

Team wise the line up looked pretty much as we were expecting with the already known injuries to Greenwood, Harder and Fuga. This meant that Duffy was called in to play on the wing and Ace as hooker. I personally favour the centre combination of James and Deane. Though Greenwood is undoubtedly a tactical genius for my money Deane and James have just clicked in a much better way than Greenwood and James. Perhaps this is due to their playing styles or maybe they’ve trained together more with Will being away on England duty.

The first half was an utterly dour affair with Quins barely gracing Sarries half and a catalogue of errors in all areas, particularly at the line out. In fact it wasn’t really until Ace was replaced by James Hayter shortly before half time that the line out functioned consistently at all, with a mixture of Ace missing his man, Sarries disrupting and stealing, Rowden (twice) adjudicating that it hadn’t been thrown in straight and once giving away a free kick for a delayed throw in. With Sarries pinning us back in our own half we needed to nail the tactical kicking battle, but the ball seemed to want to go out on the full or not at all. I did begin to wonder whether in fact the pitch was narrower than our trio of kickers (Staunton, Williams and Duffy) were used to since it seemed to be a problem to all three during the first half. We also had a few handling problems, since when we did have possession we often knocked on or found ourselves picking the ball off boot laces, notably a rather amazing pick up by Andre under great pressure about 10 yards off our own line. Although he shouldn’t have to make that kind of save he leapt forward several yards and with the kind of handling we more normally associate with Dippy scooped the ball up and managed to lay it back for a clearance kick.

With Sarries having the majority of possession territory in the first half it was only a phenomenal and committed performance in defence that kept Quins in the game, allied with a certain amount of reticence on Sarries part to get the ball over the line. I am sure their supporters will have an equal number of complaints about their team’s performance (many similar to ours) and will be wondering how they didn’t manage to convert the pressure they had into more points. They were by no means a sleek or polished outfit but Quins continually managed to frustrate them. One man who broke the game line on several occasions was Dan Harris, playing at 12 for Sarries. He broke through two tacklers and had he not been brought down by a good tackle from Tom Williams looked certain for a try under the posts after 10 minutes. As it happened Williams was then penalised for not rolling away and Sarries got the first (and only) score of the half on 11 minutes by way of a penalty from Glen Jackson. He had already missed an attempt on 5 minutes, and I wonder about his range and accuracy since time and again Sarries opted for the corner in situations which I would think ought to be in range for a premiership kicker. Perhaps they were under the impression that they could bulldoze their way over, but in fact Quins weren’t giving an inch in defence and in fact turned Sarries over after several waves of attack on each occasion. Quins, on the other hand, were awarded precious little in the way of penalties in comparison and none in a kickable position for the entire match. We can only speculate about what we’re doing wrong this year in defence to be conceding so many penalties compared to the very few we’ve been given. Have we changed our defensive patterns? Are we playing more ‘on the edge’ of legal? Have we failed to grasp a law change? I can’t believe that over the close period we’ve suddenly become a dirty team (we certainly weren’t straying offside as much as Sarries this afternoon, who, incidentally, were rarely blown up for such offences) but it is something we have got to sort out immediately to avoid being automatically put on the back foot. It is no good just complaining about the number of penalties we are conceding compared to other teams.

So, half time and 3 – 0 to Sarries. Highlight of the first half? Without a doubt Gavin Duffy putting in a huge kick to touch which looks like it is going to go flying above the two tier Rous Stand, but instead manages to find its way with pinpoint accuracy INTO a hole in the supporting concrete structure which could only have been half as big again as the rugby ball. Apart from Ace making way for Hayter shortly before half time (presumably for tactical reasons) the only other change was Dawson for Worsely on 19 minutes.

I was kind of worrying at half time that I wouldn’t see any action in the second half, since I’d made the conscious decision to sit in the South Stand and check out the view from the end of the pitch in preparation for when I’m moved from the West to the North at the Stoop. As it happens the phrase ‘a game of two halves’ has never been truer since Quins came out on fire and had a full on 20 minutes of possession and territory at the start of the second half, playing phase after phase of free flowing rugby with the ball being constantly recycling and moving from side to side of the pitch with ease. On several occasions Nick Easter and Daffyd James broke the game line only to be hauled down agonisingly close to the line. However, nothing came of the pressure. Twice Staunton sent up cross field kicks from left to right, but on the first occasion it went sailing far to high for Roy Winters on the wing and went out on the full and on the second occasion it was too high again with Dippy having to pat it back and Sarries collecting with a loss of 15 metres for Quins. In fact my main gripe was that we had tried it at all. I know rugby players these days are meant to be multi-talented players able to slip into whatever position is required, but please, a cross field kick to a second row and a no. 8? It’s a great move if you have a winger out there with the pace to beat the last man, but on each occasion it was so obvious that Sarries read the situation and had three men over to defend the line while the ball was still in mid air. It struck of a lack of ideas and the poor execution on each occasion merely led to turning over of possession to Sarries.

Nonetheless Quins eventually got their reward for sustained pressure with a 60 minute score as Gavin Duffy, rightly, backed himself to bulldoze his way over the last man to score on the right hand side of the posts. It wasn’t the easiest conversion attempt but it was by no means out towards the touchline so I was a little disappointed when Staunton failed to make the extra points. 8 minutes later he made amends with an excellently taken drop goal in front of the posts. Sarries 3, Quins 8. We continued to keep up the pressure right up to the 71st minute and all we needed to do was keep the ball in their half and we would have walked away with the spoils. Unfortunately Sarries eventually got seriously into our half in the the 72nd minute and three minutes of frenetic defending occurred with Quins right on their own line. Since it was at the other end of the ground I couldn’t see in great detail what was happening but I’m informed that So-oialo, who generally had a good game, picked up one of their forwards and walked him back a good five yards. Unfortunately with several overlap opportunities squandered Sarries did eventually make their numbers out wide count and Richard Haughton went over on 75 minutes at the far right hand corner. Glen Jackson bounced his conversion attempt off the cross bar and we were set for a nailbiting final few minutes. 8 all. Tom Williams was replaced by Henry Barrett on 77 minutes having been down for two or three minutes. Hopefully this is for nothing too serious. Having worked our way back into the Sarries half Staunton set up a drop goal which went wide and then a few minutes later tried again, which also soared high but wide to the left hand side. Andre appealed with Rowden since two of the Sarries players were a good ten yards offside and I would say definitely interfered with Staunton lining himself up, but to no avail. Sarries had possession for the final few moments after Quins conceded a penalty slightly inside our own half and out of range, but they too could do nothing with it.

On the whole it was a disappointing result. I couldn’t really work out whether it was two points lost or gained, but with the amount of possession we had in the second half I’m slowly coming round to ‘lost’. We just didn’t seem to have the quality to finish off the moves, giving away possession cheaply through knock-ons or kicking away of possession. I think Staunton has made great progress in recent games, combining with the centres in Paul Turner’s set moves but today he lacked a decisive head when put under pressure. Not only was it not obvious to me what he was about to do but I’m not sure he even knew on some occasions.

For Sarries I thought that Dave Seynour at 7 had a good game and managed to harass Dippy on several occasions at the base of the scrum. Richard Haughton also looked dangerous on occasions and picked up the Man of the Match award on the day. Having said that he only really looks that dangerous when he gets the opportunity to run in a straight line in my opinion!

For Quins Nick Easter seemed to be back to his form before the recent cup games when he was at times disappointing and Steve So-oialo made several sniping runs. The decision to play two full backs (presumably due through injury rather than tactics) didn’t bring any major revelations but Gavin Duffy looked quite sharp again, though I’m not sure if he did quite enough today to wrestle the full back position back from Tom Williams who constantly looks dangerous and made several big try saving tackles.

I wasn’t allowed into the press conference sine I’m not an accredited member of the press association so I can’t give you any insights into what ME or Scotty said. All I can say is roll on 2005 and let’s really get up for the Wasps match. I know we can beat them. Losing can be habit forming but on the strength of the first 20 minutes of the second half I know we can pull something special out of the bag if we really try, and why not start against Wasps? Quins just need the swagger and confidence to finish off the pressure they are creating and continue with the great defensive play they showed they are capable of today. We just need to find a way to break the gain line more often and then really make it count. Come on Quins…make it a Happy New Year for us!