By Poorfour
March 8 2014

The comments on ComeAllWithin after the match were pretty scathing. Fans had expected Quins to romp home with a bonus point, even shorn of their England internationals and walking wounded. Newcastle, after all, are this season's returnees to the top tier, and lie in 11th in the table with 10th already looking well out of reach. Only Worcester's dire form has kept them out of a relegation battle.

And yet on the pitch, the Falcons led narrowly with five minutes to go. Could it really be that Quins would submit to such a limited team and grant Dean Richards victory on his first visit to the Stoop since... well, let's not go there?

But if we ignore one less than glorious aspect of the club's history, there are others that we should remember. February, not T.S.Eliot's April, is traditionally Quins' cruellest month. When the wind is bitter and the ground is heavy, the advantage is with monster packs and stick-it-up-yer-jumper rugby, and Quins' high-risk, high-tempo tactics have always struggled. The big difference these past few year is in the ability of the team to scrap and scrape for the win more often than they deserve. Good teams win when they are playing badly.

And teams coached by Dean Richards are hard to beat at any time. We had already seen up in Kingston Park that Deano had created well-drilled defence and a grinding scrum. A pack with Marler and Collier in the front row was placed under serious pressure.

But memories are short, and so we approached this game expecting that a pack spearheaded by Mark Lambert and Paul Doran-Jones would have an easier time, and that a makeshift backline would run riot. Perhaps the remarkable thing is that for the first half that prediction was half right. The Falcons dominated the scrum, and ran at Quins hard; Quins made their usual string of late winter mistakes and handling errors, but the men in quarters looked comfortably in control and racked up a try in each quarter.

For the first, Ugo and JTH drove the Falcons line back, creating space that left Ollie Lindsay-Hague and Sam Smith in an overlap on the right wing. Lindsay-Hague sold the slightest of dummies, wrong-footed the defenders and cut back through the gap to complete a classy try.

With the wind making kicking difficult for both Rory Clegg and his successor as heir apparent to NEv, Ben Botica, both sides opted for a hard-running, hard-driving game. Falcons broke upfield through the efforts of Jamie Helleur, but the Quins scramble defence was effective and brought the ball back upfield. When Will Welch was sin-binned for collapsing a maul, Quins found the tryline again as Sam Smith powered through. The academy graduate has found a strong vein of form, scoring crucial tries in several games. He's reported recently that Quins offered him a new contract but he has chosen to go to Worcester, where he will deservedly have a good chance to nail down a starting spot instead of having to compete for one with the likes of Walker, Chisholm and Marland Yarde. Go with our blessings, Sam, and thanks for all the tries.

The half ended 12-3, Clegg having pulled back 3 points with his first successful kick, and Quins looked to be in control of the game. But whatever was in the half-time oranges affected the two sides very differently. Falcons came out with a new resolve and redoubled their efforts on the power game. Quins, by contrast, seemed unable to hang on to any possession, and allowed the visitors to grind their way into position for Clegg to add two penalties while missing another.

With ten minutes to go, Falcons created space for Noah Cato to break and kept the move alive just long enough for Alex Tait to stretch his way over the line. Crucially, though, Clegg missed the conversion. From a position of comfort, Quins faced yet another nail-biting finish. Fortunately, Newcastle made things easy for them. Lawson copped a yellow card as he tried to stifle an attack, and Botica convered the penalty, then Quins won another as time ran out and the Kiwi kicked it to deliver a 6-point cushion.

So Newcastle returned north with a losing bonus point and the sting of knowing that they could have won this with more composure or better kicking, and Quins were left to contemplate another inconsistent performance. Despite the bile and brickbats that immediately followed the game on this board, the first half performance, scrum aside, was a strong one. Likewise, once goaded into a response to Tait's try, Quins' play was purposeful and brought the result. The worry is in having been forced out of the game for 30 minutes by a side who were committed and well-organised but offered only occasional moments of attacking brilliance. We can only hope that our returning England players bring with them their form, the good weather, some good news from the injury list, and the jump in focus that we found in October. The Tigers have begun their end-of-season run, and if history has taught us anything it is that they do not let up once they have started. Quins cannot afford to let up either.

p.s. Apologies for the excessive delay in filing this. I've recently changed jobs, and in the process lost track of which games I'd signed up to cover. I'll try to be more organised in future.