By The Prof
April 4 2003

Well no Premiership rugby again as the Six Nations came to its climax but an awful lot of rugby has been happening and Quins have been involved in quite a bit of it again. On the Friday of last week a few young Quins were in action for the junior international sides with Tom MacCormick making his first appearance for Scotland U21s as a replacement in their 41-11 drubbing of Italy U21s. Tom came on at No. 8 in the first half for 10 minutes as a blood replacement and then in the 44th minute as a permanent
replacement at No. 6. He has played for Scotland U19s before (4 caps) and was involved in the FIRA World Cup in Chile 2001.

Talking of Italians, Alberto Landi flew home for two Italian student internationals this week – I have no idea of the results though.

The England U21s side lost by the narrowest of margins (21-20) to Ireland but Henry Barratt (centre) played well and scored one try and Quins’ U21 full back Tom Williams came on as a replacement.

Also on the Friday was the Harlequins Supporters’ Party at The Stoop, it was a great night that raised a lot of money for both Whizz Kidz and the Nick Duncombe Fund. I for one had a fantastic time and by the look on the faces of the other partygoers, fans, staff and players alike, they enjoyed it too.

The Saturday back at Quins saw two fine results, the U21s beat Rotherham with scores coming from Dipo Osho (2), Ben Cread, Tom Allen (2) Alberto Landi and Rob Outen. The Amateurs played Old Abbotsonians and won 0-17 with scores coming from Matt Jones, Matt Stevens and Andy Robinson (capt) with a conversion from the boot of Matt Stevens. This meant that they won the League and in turn promotion in the Herts/Middlesex League 2. This comes from a season where they have had a number of key players injured, in fact they are probably vying with the pros to see which team has picked up the most injuries this season!

Well done to all the Amateurs’ players and to all of their staff and supporters for this fine achievement.

The Saturday was also the start of the Hong Kong 7s, Ugo Monye was the only Quins involved as they tried to retain their trophy won last year by the likes of Ben Gollings and Nick Duncombe. Reports of the pool games say that Ugo scored almost every time he got the ball. This seems to have come as a surprise to various reporters but hose of us who have seen him play for Quins know what a talent he is combining speed and strength – if only we could get him to use a normal side step rather than the ‘Samoan’ side step that he seems to prefer he will be a great player for years to come.

The pool games saw England defeat Tonga 42-7, Chinese Taipei 43-5 and Singapore 52-0, this then lead to a quarter final victory over Australia (14-19), then Fiji in the semis (19-24) and New Zealand in the final (17-22) with Ugo scoring a try before being substituted. This victory was dedicated to Nick Duncombe as was Canada’s victory in the plate competition.

This result came through about the same time that England were celebrating their 12th Grand Slam after defeating Ireland 6-42. Three Quins were involved in this deciding game of the 2003 Six Nations – Jason Leonard who got his 102nd England cap (moving into second place behind Philippe Sella) and won his forth Grand Slam; Will Greenwood who scored two tries, set up Tindall and showed great vision again and finally Dan Luger who came on as a late replacement and only received the ball a couple of times making one break and scoring one try after Jason Leonard acted as a centre in midfield. It may well have been Jase’s last Six Nations game and what a way to go out. Greenwood seemed to really enjoy his time on the pitch even taking the mick out of Wilkinson by placing the ball close to the line on the right hand side of the pitch.

The two tries by Will and one by Dan take Quins to the top of the Hardys Nottage Hill Try Challenge with just one England International left this season – against the Barbarians on 25th May. This is a competition where the winners receive 12 bottles of Hardys Nottage Hill wine for each try scored, the wine is for rugby related fundraising projects.

Elsewhere in the club the Ladies team’s match was postponed but they can not win the league, the best position they can get now it 2nd, they still have the lowest points conceded in the league.

Finally reports from the Leinster site say that we have signed Andy Dunne, their exciting fly-half for next season.

So the U21s beat Rotherham, we had representatives in the Scottish and English U21s, reports from Ireland on the signing of Andy Dunne, Ugo scored in the victory in the Hong Kong 7s, Will, Dan and Jase won the Grand Slam and the Amateurs won their League – another pretty good week all in all – let’s hope for another away win in Leeds too.