By KevT
November 7 2002

NEC Harlequins take on Saracens at Vicarage Road on Sunday (Kick off 3.00pm). Quins will be buoyed by their second league victory in a row with their 18 – 9 defeat of Bath. Saracens were disappointed to lose an eight lead at half time against Leeds and will be pumped up for this fixture. Quins make three changes to the team that defeated Bath on Saturday. David Slemen replaces Will Greenwood who is absent on international duty. Bruce Starr starts for the first time in the league this season as Jason Leonard is also absent with England. In Jason’s absence, Tony Diprose will captain the team against his former club. However, Andre Vos will take over the captaincy when Quins play Wasps next weekend. Keith Wood returns from injury and replaces the very unlucky Tani Fuga who was CAW’s Player of The Month for October.
 
Quins Man of the match last week, Nick Duncombe, will be playing against fellow England international scrum half Kyran Bracken for the first time. “Kyran is very experienced and a strong player. He has a good break and pass. I’m sure he’ll feel he has a point to prove after being left out of the England squad. Some people might see it as a battle between myself and Kyran but it won’t be like that. We’ll both be concentrating on our own game and our own team.”
 
“It was good to get a result on Saturday. It was an important game, our fifth at home and we needed that result. Andre (Vos) was fairly quiet on the pitch but everywhere I went, he was there. He put so many tackles in and slowed up a lot of their ball. I’m sure as he gets to know the players he’s going to become more vocal.”
 
I asked Nick about his own form. “ I missed the first few matches of the season with a leg injury. It’s nice to be playing well now. I made a couple of basic errors on Saturday which I’ll try to eradicate.”
 
“Saracens have got a very good expansive wide game and are very experienced from nine to thirteen. They will test our defence, especially out wide.”
 
In the preceding match last season Saracens won by 39 – 25 scoring four tries in the first half and two in the second half. Quins scored one try through Will Greenwood. Saracens gained revenge for a 43 –6 victory by Quins at The Stoop.
 
Saracens make a number of changes to the team that lost to Leeds as they have lost Richard Hill, Ben Johnston, Thomas Castaignede, Nicky Little and Tom Shanklin on international duty. David Flatman and Christian Califano return to bolster a strong front row. Andy Goode continues at Fly Half despite picking up a lot of criticism for missing kicks over the past two weeks.
 
In a Saracens press release this week Hooker Matt Cairns said: "We're really up for the game on Sunday, it's a big game, particularly as there will be a lot of old faces with Scotty (Mike Scott), Evs (Mark Evans), Dips (Tony Diprose), Bill (Davison) and Powelly (Matt Powell) coming back to Vicarage Road. In the front row, we've struggled a bit recently with Flats (Flatman) and Cali (Califano) out injured, but they're both back to fitness now and we've potentially got a powerful line-up and I'm sure there'll be some interesting confrontations in the forwards!”
 
"We were obviously disappointed with the result against Leeds and not making any impact in the second half. We were still controlling the game, but we made some simple mistakes that gave them chances, missing penalties and spilling the ball; there were also some harsh penalty decisions and things just didn't go our way.”
 
On their day Saracens are one of the best sides in the country, but their day hasn’t been that often this season. They only played for one half last week and missed a stack of chances. Andy Goode has also been struggling with the boot this season.
 
Sarries like to get the ball out wide to Darragh O’Mahoney and England Sevens player Haughton. The ability of Quins speedy back row to support their tackler and turn over or slow down ball could be crucial. Andre Vos will need to match or beat his tackle count of Saturday. The excellent Tim Horan will provide problems for Nick Greenstock and Bill Satala and Kevin Sorrell is also a powerful centre. Kyran Bracken who had such a good game against them last year will ably supply the Sarries backs. I think Quins will try to run at Andy Goode, draw in the Saracens centres and then attack through their wings.
 
Flatman and Califano are international class props and are likely to give the Quins front row a hard time. Codling and Davison may well be able to steal some ball from the large but not always agile Benazzi and Yandell. Quins will also have an advantage in the back row against the lightweight and inexperienced Chesney, Roques and Russell. Quins will have a much speedier pack and will try to use that to their advantage.
 
Any Buck Shelford team will be motivated after giving away a game as Sarries did last week. Expect a vigorous display from Sarries especially from their forwards. Quins will want to slow up their ball to stop them going wide which should make the forwards battle interesting. This is a tough away match for Quins. They will have to be at their very best to beat a strong Saracens side. I think this game could go either way and will be won by less than a converted score.
 

NEC Harlequins: 15.  Nathan Williams 14. Matt Moore 13. Bill Satala 12. Nick Greenstock 11. Ben Gollings 10. David Slemen 9. Nick Duncombe  1. Bruce Starr 2. Keith Wood 3. Laurent Gomez 4. Bill Davison  5. Alex Codling 6. Ace Tiatia 7. Andre Vos 8. Tony Diprose


Saracens:  15. Winnan 14. Haughton 13. Sorrell 12. Horan 11. O'Mahony 10. Goode 9. Bracken 1.Flatman 2. Cairns 3. Califano 4. Benazzi 5. Yandell 6. Chesney 7. Roques  8. Russell