By DOK
October 17 2004

It was cold, overcast and looked like it might rain. There was very little wind and the pitch was muddy. Who would that favour? This isn’t going to be a blow-by-blow account of the game; you can read that in the papers. Rather it is going to be the stand out impressions of the day.

The match started with an amusing incident where Leicester instead of running down the whole line of kids broke a hole in the line early on and poured through. A bit of an omen you might have thought. I seem to remember Martin Johnson was a bit dischuffed with our tunnel of kids the last time they played here. Still, its not like he’s captain of England anymore so I don’t suppose he cares whether there was some kid on the end of the line waiting to see him run past.

The game started and the first thing I was watching for was how we played in the set pieces. With the quality/weight of players in the Leicester pack, you could have been forgiven for thinking it might have been a walk over (or push over). The first couple of scrums Leicester really put the squeeze on, and we were lucky not to be penalized for standing up in the scrum. Eventually of course this is exactly what happened. However for the first half and some of the second the scrum hung in there. If not on equal terms, then certainly they still made it difficult for Leicester.

Right from the first scrum when Tani and Julian White squared up to each other it was obvious there were going to be a few fireworks. Barley had this incident been damped down when there was another flurry of handbags on the center spot between Johnson and Miall, Leicester got the penalty (all 50/50 decisions seemed to go their way) and Andy Goode knocked the first three points over from the half way line.

The next thing of note was a rolling Leicester maul was stopped by some determined tackling by the Quins forwards. This was a completely unexpected bonus and one that was to happen a number of times during the game, Leicester the masters of the rolling maul were stopped in their tracks.

On the sixth minute we got a penalty for Leicester coming in at the side. It wasn’t the site of Staunton kicking the points that cheered me as much as seeing the pleasure the front five got for having forced this. Clearly there’s a good team spirit going there and this scrum was “up for it”. 

Simon Miall seemed to be having a good day in the lineout, especially with Johnson there trying to disrupt or steal the ball, he was very solid and responsible for quite a few great takes. We stole a couple of lineouts from Leicester too, didn’t expect that to happen.

George Harder seemed to be doing his best to win the game on his own, despite being bandaged up like the invisible man again. If he ever gets really fit he’s going to be one heck of a potent strike force.

Laugh of the first half was the cross field kick (didn’t see who did it) but the recipient lurking on the right wing was Ceri Jones! He tried his best, poor lad, but a winger he ain’t! It was reminiscent of the great man Jason Leonard’s best work on the wing!

We were lucky that Andy Goode’s penalty in the 19^th minute bounced of the posts, but all credit to Quins who had people positioned for just this event and they snuffed out any possible danger of Leicester benefiting from this.

Neil Back looked like David Beckham going for a yellow card, if at first you don’t succeed… Its funny how with him and Johnno all those traits and tricks you loved to see them do for England you hate to see them do for Leicester. The crowd were most unsporting as Back trudged off, booing and shouting “Cheerio, cheerio!”

Johnson got similar treatment from the crowd for his constant telling the referee what to do next and was lucky not to get his own yellow for hands in the scrum a few minutes after Back.

At half time (9-12) I thought we were in with a good chance. True the rain had started and the referee hadn’t done us any favours, but a win actually looked possible, and that wasn’t something I’d expected to feel.

The second half had less highlights. Goode got another three points, the only score of the half. Our set piece stuff started to come apart, we lost scrums and lineouts that we’d been winning in the first half. The pitch and ball were greasy and there were any number of handling errors on both sides. It was nip and tuck, and a single moment of outrageous luck or inspiration could have won it for either side. Quins got some forward momentum going with a couple of good rolling mauls, but couldn’t quite finish Leicester off from them. Leicester had their chances but didn’t really have the go-forward either.

Instead it ended 9-15, with neither side scoring a try on the day.

The Press Conference

Leicester

John Wells was very laid back and direct. “It was a crap game, crap weather and crap day, but we won” (actually he used the S word).

Asked about Ollie Smith he said it’s a shoulder dislocation and would take 4-6 weeks to sort out, but they’ll know more by Monday.

He said Quins could take credit for not giving an inch. Today was a real battle about possession and territory and on the day Leicester were better.

He said it would have been nice to score a try, but they couldn’t because of the weather and the opposition, they had to win however and they did.

Asked whether he thought Harlequins would keep their position at the bottom, he said we had too many good players to stay on the bottom of the table. We just needed some consistency and we’d start to edge some games. He said Quins have got game breakers like Harder, Duffy and Greenwood. He was pleased they’d been controlled today.

Asked about old boy Scott Bemand, he said Scott needed game time because if Harry Ellis is picked for England he’ll need to step in then. He said Scott justified his inclusion today, but these weren’t conditions in which either scrum half could shine.

 

Harlequins

I don’t know why Mike Scott turned up with Mark Evans he never said a word!

Mark started off by answering a question on whether he saw this as another defeat or a big performance by answering, “Yes”. It transpired this was a yes to both questions.

His summary was that we played well in the first half and didn’t deserve to be 9-12 down (I took this as a little dig at Dave Pearson). He said Leicester destroy a side’s set piece and we’d stood up to them well. Our line outs were excellent. He said the rain didn’t do us any favours. Maurice Fitzgerald was starting for the first time this season and ran out of steam by the 60^th minute. Jon Dawson is injured so we could only send Mark Lambert on, and with the best will in the world that was always going to disrupt us. He said you need to play a team like Leicester for a full 80 minutes, not ease off at 60.

Asked would he have taken a six point difference before the game, he answered “no”.

Asked about this season he said Worcester was the absolute nadir, the game against Glos was a narrow defeat and so was this one, but it wasn’t pleasant. He said there were no tries for either side in the dreadful conditions, but we had a dreadful second half.

He then made the announcement that on Monday he’ll announce another signing. Julian asked if he could announce it now and guess what? “No!”

He also said he didn’t think we got too many of the 50/50 calls from the referee.

Asked about his dual role he did the equivalent of rolling his eyes and issuing a long sigh! Asked if he was under pressure, he said of course he was. He said pressure comes with the job, but he can handle it.

He said he didn’t know (and neither did any other DOR) how many games needed to be won this season in order to stay up.

Someone asked about Munster and suddenly we were on much more familiar ground! Munster? Great place, wonderful people, looking forward to it immensely! Why not? At the beginning of the season when the fixture list was known they’d recognised this part of the season would be “lively” and he was looking forward to the challenge. We could have qualified for the Heineken cup two ways, we deserve to be there, we deserve our shot at it.

Asked if the stand off kicking was part of a plan or if he kicked too much, Mark said it wasn’t a plan as such. However you need field position against Leicester. What you can’t afford is to let them get a 5 meter scrum or line out because they’re lethal at that range. With Leicester so brutal in contact, our set pieces falling apart and our rolling mauls being stopped by the ref even when going forward, we needed to kick more than we might have done otherwise.

Asked about Leicester always kicking for goals, he first of all complimented Andy Goode on his excellent performance in that department but said he regarded the fact they didn’t kick for the corners as a kind of back handed compliment.

Finally, asked why only now he was strengthening the scrum with our new signing, he challenged anyone to tell him of a world class line out forward in Europe in the summer who was out of contract and available. He said he hated assumptions that just because we hadn’t signed anybody meant Quins hadn’t been looking for anybody.