By Charlotte Coldrey
October 27 2004

Typical! Mum and Dad had asked me to come out of school on time. So for once I was out of school on time and they were about 10 minutes late because Dad managed to break our brand new suitcase because it was full of my shoes! We got to the airport and played spot the Harlequin shirt! But to our surprise there weren’t any! We checked in and went through to Departure’s and we found that there were no facilities apart from a Costa Coffee café and we wanted to properly sit down, so we asked if we could go back through security and we were allowed. We found a bar and had our dinner and we checked in again. We went through security again and we managed to walk past a bunch of shops and bars next to the departure gate!!!

Dad thought he saw Bill Davison on the flight; I kept on telling him that it wasn’t, but he wouldn’t believe me. Guess who was right? We found out from Barbara on the way back that it was Rory Jenkins. We were also sitting in front of the referee and the linesman. Surprisingly he wasn’t wearing any glasses – perhaps he needed them! He did seem very nice and his guide dog was lovely!

We got to the hotel late so we didn’t go out and as I was tired I went to bed while Mum and Dad had a drink in the bar. Dad’s first Guinness of the weekend!

As it was a late kick off us had a lovely lazy morning in the hotel, pottering around and reading. We had lunch at Clohessy’s Bar where we saw the first of our Quins shirts. I got my face paints on (which didn’t last very long in the rainL). I started to feel very lonely without Ash there. The time passed really slowly (but I managed to see the time as Dad has brought me a very lovely watch on the flight out). On the way to the bar dad was saying that he was glad that he hadn’t brought the umbrella. How very wrong he was! We walked up to the ground and it struck me how little facilities there were; there was no burger bars, no mascots, very little seating and no facilities for youngsters like there are at the Stoop, but there were hundreds of children there and lots of red.

We were worried that we were going to get thrashed by Munster. After 10 minutes those feelings were gone as we were in the lead 3-0. It didn’t take long for Munster to catch up with the score and over take us. They scored 2 tries to lead 15-3 at half time. Munster didn’t score anymore points in second time, but we did! We scored 2 more penalties and we would have scored a try if it wasn’t for the blooming referee for saying we knocked on. When I looked back on the game I thought we played excellently seeing as we played one of the best teams in Europe. Compared to my worst game of the season at Worcester I was very proud of our team. To get a bonus point away at Munster was a fantastic achievement. It was lovely to see Burkey but I was angry that he was practising on his own at the beginning and everyone seemed as if they were leaving him out. I was also angry that Munster stole one our best players and didn’t even play him!

We were absolutely soaked after the game so we decided to walk back to the hotel and get dried off and then go back to sneak me in to Clohessy’s before 9.00pm when children under 18 are thrown out. We had a plan that I would hide in the corner behind a large stomach - guess who’s? No, not Jase’s but my Dad’s! We stayed in Clohessy’s until 11.00pm – don’t tell the police – when we decided to head home to bed passing Keith Wood and Jason Leonard. Mum couldn’t resist, she had to say a quick hello to him!

I was very surprised to find out that Dad didn’t snore at all in the night – perhaps I should give him 11 pints of Guinness more often!

Compared to our trip to Galway I’d give it 5/10 and Montauban 7/10.

It’s nice to speak to you Scotty, hope you enjoy this match report as much as the others! Tell the players how proud we all are of them!