By Wyddy
February 15 2013

How quickly we come to the business end of the season, cup semi finals and quarter finals begin to cramp the calendar, not to mention the 6 Nations roundabout. Traditionally this has been a happy hunting ground for us, where we have picked up points from teams who had lost their best and brightest to the home nations. Now however we feel the pinch with the boot on the other foot, a significant part of our spine is missing, our strength in depth is being tested. 

Up until now we have muddled along and with the exception of last weekends result against Wasps we have scraped through. Now however we welcome our stripey chums to town, in a true top of the table clash. Quins were deposed last week by Leicester at the top of the table by the slightest of margins, Tigers having accrued a wider differential in their winning margins. Wasps came to the Stoop with their young side and piddled over our fireworks with a combination of good wing play, frustrating tactics and a rare day at the office to forget for Nick Evans. He threw an intercept pass for their opening try in the early stages of the game, and then after a fair amount of clattering he missed, what for him, would have been 3 pretty regulation shots at goal which would have won us the game. 

It was a strange old game, with Quins lining up with an untried centre combo of the lively Hopper in the unfamiliar 12 shirt and George Lowe recalled alongside of him. It was noticeable when JTH came on that our shape and solidity seemed to improve, alongside the impact of Maurie Fa’asavalu this enabled us to push and chase for a game we in all honesty didn’t deserve to win (but it was one of those games where no one truly deserved the win). 

Leicester have had a stroke of good fortune, with Tuilagi, Flood and Waldrom released back to them for the weekend, and they all start against Quins. The Tigers team has traditionally always been strong in depth, and looking at their line up for Saturday that is evident once again with a raft of strong, experienced players lining up. Their pack looks suitably strong, although they have been unfortunate to lose Castrogiovanni to injury just when they would have looked to have him start in Cole’s absence. Louis Deacon will spearhead their team and his experience will assist them at line out time where they will have to do without Geoff Parling who continues to go from strength to strength for England. He will be able assisted by Kitchener in the second row, who recently had a stand out game for England Saxons in their close loss to Scotland. Their back row will be mobile and rUmbunctious even though Quins supporters can breathe a sigh of relief that frequent tormenter Mafi is not selected. 

The Tigers backline looks very strong, Flood returns at fly half to take over from George Ford who has failed to sparkle as much as he did in the previous season, if their pack gains dominance this could give a potentially ring rusty Flood a massive boost. At scrum half they continue with young, Sam Harrison over the claims of Micky Young, this could be an area Quins look to target running through that channel and Danny Care not giving him time on the ball. Not a lot more needs to be said about the Leicester centre axis, Anthony Allen and Manu Tuilagi return to action, Allen once again providing the steadying hand to Manu’s wrecking ball.

The one thing in Quins favour is that this partnership is well known to Quins and has been marshalled to good effect on a number of occasions, Conor O’Sheas men will be hoping Tuilagi is affected by the same sort of dropsy he experienced in last years final. Moving to their back three, Leicester blend the youthful exuberance of former Exile, Adam Thompstone with the experience of Scott Hamilton and Matthew Tait. Thompstone has been impressive this season, not only is he a big unit but he can seriously shift and he seems to be developing into a clinical finisher, ally that with the nous of Hamilton and the still as yet untapped potential of Tait and this is a complimentary back three. Tait remains an enigma, in certain games this season he has sparked a bit of magic but then in the next phase he will revert to the default setting of being distinctly average, he remains one of those players that never really fulfilled the expectations of when they first came on the scene. At 27 he still has a bit of time on his side and he is by no means a bad player, but a lot of people will be wondering how his development would have shaped without the England experience he had as a young player and the glut of injuries that hampered him. 

Quins step into this crucible game with Danny Care back from England bench duty where he has been kicking his heels waiting for Ben Youngs to have a mare, and he comes straight back in at 9 to replace a frankly out of form Karl Dickson. The biggest surprise in selection from Conor O’Shea, comes in the pack, where Nick Easter has been moved to second row to partner George Robson. There is no questioning his power, and in Ollie Kohn’s absence this will be sorely needed, but this is a strange game to be taking this sort of gamble. With Easter filling in in the second row, Tom Guest has the opportunity to continue at No8 with Maurie Fa’asavalu coming in at 6. Mo had a great impact from the bench last week and looked more like the player we know and love. LV= Cup Captain, Luke Wallace, who was one of the few to have a storming game last week, continues at 7 in Robshaws absence, his head to head with Salvi will be one that is eagerly anticipated by rugby purists and will show how far Luke has come. Up tight, it’s much the same story for Quins as they rely on the merits of Joe Gray over the bustlier Rob Buchanan, he will line up alongside Saracens bound James Johnstone and Mark Lambert. Both props in recent weeks have had the opportunity to test their cardio capacity with lung busting breaks in open play, Lambert in particular has had a strong season when covering for Marler. 

Moving to the backs and the match up with Allen and Tuilagi, has seen O’Shea recall Jordan Turner-Hall to the starting line up alongside Matt Hopper, surely one of our players of the season. The defensive solidity that was absence against Wasps in the centres should be strengthened by the return of JTH and Hopper moving to his more regular outside centre slot. Nick Evans has recovered sufficiently from the buffeting he took last week to resume, and one has to think that if Ben Botica had been fit enough to be on the subs bench last week he would have come off to replace Evans. However Clegg was the man on the bench and for one reason or another was not brought on to relieve a clearly hampered Evans. Fortunately Evans is a player who very rarely has 2 bad games in a row and has the full support of the Stoop faithful, although we may miss the sumptuous tones of the Wasps faithful during penalty time with the more refined Tigers fans in attendance. 

On the wings, Ugo Monye and Tom Williams continue, and Williams will be hard pressed by Thompstone, look for Chisholm to feature early as Quins test out the 10/12 channel for any purchase. Chisholm who has only just come back from his lengthy injury lay off suffered at Welford Road, looks a lot bulkier than at the start of the season and needs to shake off his ring rust sooner rather than later if Quins are to overcome this Saturday. Ugo will hopefully have calmed down from his handbags session last week with Joe Simpson. 

Two impressive line ups, with Tigers fielding a more experienced bench, but then we’ve come to take that as standard. It’s time for Quins players like, Wallace, Lambert and Chisholm to prove they have the mettle to take on and better a strong Leicester side without a few of our leading lights in the team. 

Quins will really need to pull something out of the bag to see off this resurgent Leicester side... 

Heart says Quins by 5pts... 
Head says Tigers by 7pts... 

Come on you Heart!!! Come on YOU QUINS!!!!! 

Wyddy