By BatQuin
February 7 2005

It was rather strange looking out over the pitch and not seeing the West Stand.  The lovely new red fence and the trees were a reasonable substitute for the old stand and the signage, ‘a new era’, sent out a positive message that we hoped would manifest itself on the pitch.

Mad Max was whipping up the excitement by giving us updates on the teams’ arrival.  You could imagine the players crossing the road from the college, in crocodile fashion, on their way back to the Stoop.

Happily both teams made it and emerged through a door on the north-west edge of the new B&Q (allegedly) fencing.   Kick-off!  A good start by Quins meant that at 3 minutes into the game we were 3 points up thanks to a penalty kicked by Jeremy Staunton, given for Gloucester killing the ball. 

The re-start was gathered by Dippy who passed it out to Steve So’oialo who kicked it up.  Gloucester gathered but were deemed to have knocked on.  Scrum to Quins.  Despite a good break by Mel Deane, Gloucester got the ball back and kicked to touch.  Quins take at their lineout and the ball was back to Jeremy who sent a marvellous kick to touch.  Gloucester lost their lineout thanks to Maling, and Staunton pushed forward and looked like scoring, but got tackled.  So’oialo managed to get the ball out and Tom Williams went through in the south-west corner for five points.  Staunton missed the conversion, but with 11 minutes gone, Quins were 8-0 up.

Dippy gathered the restart but Gloucester were given a penalty because Quins weren’t releasing.  Henry Paul’s kick made the scores 8-3.  Same he couldn’t have kicked like that when he was in a white shirt last autumn.  The teams traded kicks for a few minutes, but then Gloucester got a penalty and kicked to the corner.  Some good work by Jim Evans pinched the ball, but Quins took it over the line, so scrum 5.  Good pressure by Gloucester resulted in another penalty which Paul slotted to make the score 8-6 at 18 minutes gone. 

‘Good pressure’ is something you see written a lot by the supposed professional hacks and I reckon it’s because they’ve stopped taking notes or they can’t remember exactly what was happening.  Well some ‘good pressure’ obviously got Quins a penalty but I can’t remember what for.  Jeremy confused the Gloucester players as it appeared he was lining up to add 3 points to the total.  Instead he tapped it and the push forward resulted in a Quins scrum which then led to a free kick which Staunton hoofed up the pitch, with Ugo following at pace.  The kick sadly had more pace than Ugo and it went out for a Gloucester lineout.  The teams traded lineouts for a few minutes and Gloucester started to look a bit dangerous.  A break from them saw Duffy chasing back to cover.  At this moment I had to run to the loo (it was cold) so threw the notebook at NGA and said ‘write down what happens’.  Not much appears to have happened except that somehow we both missed Balding being binned for Gloucester.  He obviously deserved it though.  Happily I was back in time to record that the first ball went over the fence at 27 minutes.  The ball-boy’s probably still looking for it.

Quins won yet another line-out but in the melee that followed, they lost it forward.  Gloucester gathered and kicked but the kick went dead (phew).  A game of knock-on ensued with first Tom Williams, and then Fanolua knocking on.  Scum to Glaws and the lovely Duncan McRae kicked the ball dead, followed by a scrum to Quins in the middle of the park.  A bit of to-ing and fro-ing, but Quins gathered the ball and Ace was powering forward when the ball appeared to be dropped.  If Ace knocked on I couldn’t tell from where I was sitting, but the referee certainly appeared to think that Ace had knocked rather expertly on Terry Sigley’s head.  Red card.  Now punching someone is obviously a daft thing to do, but I did start to wonder why Ace had been so bloody silly.  Had he, perhaps, taken on board comments that Quins had an unfair advantage because Gloucester had lost some international players for today’s game?  Did he think that by spending the remainder of the match off the field it would level things up and therefore be a ‘proper’ contest?  Whatever the reason (and I’m sure there was one), Gloucester no doubt had the advantage as Quins would play the rest of the game (50 minutes at least) with only 14 men. There was some confusion among the supporters around me about the colour of the card because the red didn’t show up well against the new red fence!

Gloucester kicked the penalty and the score now stood at 8-9 at 34 minutes.  Nick Easter went off to be replaced by James Hayter.   Feeling a little nervous I settled down to take notes again, but noticed that RobShew had moved his wheelchair into the middle of the East Stand concourse to in order to be able to see past all the people ambling in front of him. It’s a shame that Super Steward, Suzi hadn’t been around then.  She did a sterling job at the end of the match.  Anyway, I digress.  Quins got a scrum and the ball went out to Dippy and Quins pushed forward.  Gloucester were deemed to have pulled down the maul and Staunton slotted a great penalty to bring the score to 11-9 (37 mins), and another one a couple of minutes later to send Quins in (or rather over the road) at half time 14-9 up. 

At the break Gloucester brought on Nick Wood for Terry Sigley but no other changes were announced.   Quins started well in the second half with another good lineout and some good forward running by James Hayter.  Quins then nicked the ball on a Gloucester throw, but Gloucester pinched it back on the floor.  Duncan McRae was lying on the floor at this point, looking slightly injured, but not getting much sympathy from the surrounding supporters.  Put away that voodoo doll, Mr O’Gara!   He gets up, so Ronan obviously needs more practise with the pins!

Crossing by Gloucester so a penalty to Quins.  No, Rowden’s given them a scrum instead, so he needs to brush up on his signals as it was obviously not crossing (‘crossing’ is one of the few I know, you see).  Dippy picked up the ball and got clattered, but Jim Evans then picked up and went  through the middle, only to be tackled, illegally apparently.  Rowden had a friendly chat with Jake Boer, and Jeremy slotted ANOTHER penalty to make it 17-9 to Quins with 7 minutes gone in the second half.   Two replacements for Gloucester: Eustace for Brown and Mauger for McRae (OK, so Ronan’s pins worked after all).

Dippy was shoved off the ball at the re-start and Staunton kicked the penalty to the corner.  Binky was heard to be properly complimentary to a Touch Judge, something that rarely happens, so worth a mention.  After winning their lineout, Quins knocked on and Gloucester passed out wide to Fanolua who kicked out on the full but got flattened by Gavin for his trouble.  Good pressure (sorry!) by Gloucester again saw them pushing forward well and making me very nervous.  Should I have been worried? Of course not.  Excellent tackling by Ceri Jones and then Gavin Duffy kept them at bay.  What I was worried about was the sight of James Hayter lying on the floor and the game going on around him.  Eventually Rowden blew his whistle and we sat tight for a couple of minutes, hoping James would get up.

Both teams traded knock-ons, in-field kicks and scrums for the next few minutes but Quins definitely seemed to be holding their own in the scrum despite being a man down.  Gloucester finally picked up the ball and passed it out to their no, 14 (Kiole) who kicked out for a Quins lineout, won, obviously, by Quins.  Jeremy’s kick was collected by Gloucester, but in the ensuing pile (I love those technical words), Paul was laying all over the ball but not penalised.  Fanolua kicked out and the Quins lineout led to Mel Deane crashing up the pitch like a steamroller.  He managed to offload to Mike Worsely who pushed forward and gave the most wonderful pass to Simon Keogh who did what Simon Keogh does best – score tries!   Converted by Staunton, the score, at 21 minutes gone in the second half : 24-9.   Has no-one told Gloucester they’ve got numerical advantage?  Perhaps not.

Gloucester appeared to be galvanised by Keogh’s try (me too!) and started scaring the hell out me by passing the ball about and looking pretty dangerous.  In fact, so scared was I that I stopped writing.  Strong defence by Quins meant that Gloucester got nothing for their efforts.  A quick penalty by Gomarsall was well-defended and then a marvellous intercept from Keogh had him sprinting up the pitch to score his second try.  24 minutes gone and it’s 31-9 to Quins.  I’m speechless but can’t stop grinning. My hands are shaking and I can’t write.  After Ace’s red card this was surely not in the script?  Note to self: chuck script in the nearest bin.

The next five or so minutes saw some great defence to keep out Gloucester and a couple of Quins replacements.  Tom Williams went off for Henry Barratt (who swapped places with Gav) and the two Simons swapped in the second row: Maling off for Miall.   Despite having numbers going forward, Gloucester kept passing in-field and losing the ball.  Vos put in a huge tackle and Gloucester knocked on.  Gloucester earned a penalty which they took fast, but Gavin’s defence was spot on.  Gloucester were then penalised for not releasing so Jeremy decided to kick a ball into the new dugout.  Gloucester actually steal our lineout, but Quins managed to regain the ball and Staunton cleared.  Jim Evans was replaced by Roy Winters (34 mins) and Roy got straight into the action with a great tackle (just for you, RB!).  A penalty to us for crossing was obviously missed by Gomarsall who kept running in a futile attempt to convince Rowden that he’d actually scored a try.  Silly boy shouldn’t have worn himself out needlessly when his team were a man down . . .  oh, no, it was US who were a man down wasn’t it?  Sorry, you just couldn’t tell from the way we were playing.

Jeremy found touch from the penalty and the 4^th ball of the afternoon was lost in the trees.  After winning our lineout (again) we pushed forward but a bit of indecision by Staunton (come on, he’s allowed one off moment in an otherwise excellent performance) lost us the ball.  At this point, my writing went all wonky again and so I can’t read what I wrote but I know that Gomarsall managed to get away with laying all over the ball again, but he was obviously only doing this due to injury because he was soon substituted and Page came on.  Quins continued to attack and it’s close to the 40 minute mark but we’re bound to have at least 3 minutes for stoppages as Hayter was on the floor for a long time earlier in the half.  An inspired bit of management and there was a triple replacement for Quins : Reay for Deane, Sherriff for Vos and Dawson for Mike Worsley.  And it worked.  Almost immediately, Quins got a penalty and kicked to the corner.  With the lineout gathered safely, and shored up by some fresh legs, Quins pushed over for their 4^th try and that all-important bonus point.  The conversion just iced off the cake!

Final score:  Harlequins 38  Gloucester 9.  

What a wonderful, spirited performance from a team who had to battle for 50+ minutes with 14 men.   The joy on the faces of the players was a sight to savour and they thoroughly deserved to be so delighted.  I think we were pretty happy too.  There’s still a long way to go before we can be sure we’re safe, but that performance was a great step on the way to securing our place in the ZP.  Any Quins supporter who can’t find anything positive to say about Saturday’s game has a serious problem with depression and I would suggest they visit their GP for a large dose of Prozac forthwith!

 

The Press Conference. 

I danced (quite literally) to the press conference.  First up were Scotty and Evs.  Professional-looking hack (no baseball cap) up first:  ‘ That was extraordinary wasn’t it?’

“Yes it was.  They were terrific today from 1-15.  It was a pressure game with a lot riding on it.  Both sides were 4 short of their best team, either through injury or the international [yes, and they all count.  In fact surely it’s easier to plan for the internationals – you know they’re coming!]  So, we were pretty even.  The team came out and then went down to 14 men – Ace got smacked and he put one back.  When the guy goes down that’s what people see and he had to go.  I thought at that point, knowing what I knew about James Hayter, who should have been nowhere near a 22 at the moment because of the groin injury that was aggravated at the warm-up, that it would be hard. [Blimey, glad I didn’t know about James!  I was worried enough.]  But we battled and battled.  I thought Jeremy Staunton had a great game [and so do the Times & the Telegraph, oh, and me.]”

Andre was magnificent wasn’t he?  [Stupid question!  Who asked that?  Of course he was!] 

“As ever” replied Scotty before Evs continued

“We dominated the game.  It never looked like they would go through. In the second half they had a go but just fell away.” 

What about the bonus point?

“Thought we could get a driving maul on if we stuck on 3 new forwards.  If you have 3 or 4 who have only played a short while (Miall, Winters, Dawson, Sherriff) it makes a difference.  We did the same to Leeds.” 

What does that tell you about your team?

“The games are about momentum.  Against Munster and Leicester we played well but didn’t win.  It’s important to play well and win which we did today and we’ll feel better about ourselves.  We can take that and go forward.  Worcester is a massive game.  We’ve won and we got a bonus point.  We might still be 12^th  [actually, we’re not – cue lots of singing of ‘we’re not bottom anymore’] but we could have 5 teams all within 4 points of each other.  There are worse run-ins to have at the end of the season than ours, but you can’t control other teams.  You have to control your own destiny.  I also thought the lineout operated pretty well as we’d lost a key lifter.”

There wasn’t much else they could say, so they grabbed a quick coffee while a very miserable-looking Mr Melville appeared.  I tried to stop grinning as I thought he might think I was gloating. 

A rather strange question to start:  How disgusted were you with that, Nigel?

[Nigel thought it odd too and gave the junior hack a strange look]  “Disgusted isn’t the right word.  It was embarrassing.  What else can you say? [nothing, good, off for a drink . . . oh, OK, carry on]  Our passing was unacceptable irrespective of the result.  If you lack passing skills you can’t play.” 

Over to Dean Ryan:

“We lacked passion which is unacceptable for a team from Gloucester.  I don’t know what the answer is but in the first half we didn’t have any.  When we found some we were too far behind and playing suicide rugby.”

Will criticism be fierce?

“It means a lot down our way and the manner in which we lost is unacceptable.” 

They were clearly very disappointed and they had no excuses for a pretty lacklustre performance.  To be honest I wanted to get out of there because they looked so miserable and there really wasn’t anything left to say.  Whichever way you looked at it, Gloucester hadn’t managed to score ANY POINTS after Ace was removed from the pitch.  The last thing they did was score from the penalty that they gained from the binning.  Quins, on the other hand, played like 20 men! 

Nigel Melville, to his credit, didn’t try to make any excuses.  He joked, (well, joked isn’t quite the right word because he sure wasn’t laughing) that all his team had ‘flu and/or stomach bugs, but in the end he had to concede that they were not good enough.

Harlequins
Mike Worsley (Jon Dawson ,82 mins), Ace Tiatia, Ceri Jones, Jim Evans (Roy Winters ,75 mins), Simon Maling (Simon Miall ,70 mins), Nick Easter (James Hayter ,36 mins), Andre Vos (Luke Sherriff ,81 mins), Tony Diprose, Steven So’oialo, Jeremy Staunton, Ugo Monye, Mel Deane (Andy Reay ,81 mins), Gavin Duffy, Simon Keogh, Tom Williams (Henry Barratt ,70 mins).
Replacements: James Hayter (Nick Easter ,36 mins), Jon Dawson (Mike Worsley ,82 mins), Simon Miall (Simon Maling ,70 mins), Roy Winters (Jim Evans ,75 mins), Luke Sherriff (Andre Vos ,81 mins), Henry Barratt (Tom Williams ,70 mins), Andy Reay (Mel Deane ,81 mins)

Gloucester
Christo Bezuidenhout, James Parkes, Terry Sigley (Nick Wood ,41 mins), Mark Cornwell (Adam Eustace ,47 mins), Alex Brown, Peter Buxton, Jake Boer, Adam Balding, Andy Gomarsall (Alex Page ,79 mins), Duncan McRae (Nathan Mauger ,47 mins), James Simpson-Daniel, Henry Paul, Terry Fanolua, Seti Kiole, Jon Goodridge.
Replacements: Noel Curnier, Nick Wood (Terry Sigley ,41 mins), Adam Eustace (Mark Cornwell ,47 mins), Luke Narraway, Alex Page (Andy Gomarsall ,79 mins), Nathan Mauger (Duncan McRae ,47 mins), Mark Foster

More photographs of the game can be found here.