By MikePW
January 10 2005

Or, as the local paper said, we was atomised. Well, this trip seemed like a good idea, back in the autumn. Surely Quins would have recovered enough form to make a game of it by now – and a chance to visit one of the great, and alledgedly most hospitable of French clubs. Unfortunately not all my hopes were fulfilled.
The Quins team showed some major changes – Dunne had a much-deserved start and the whole back row was rested, with Diprose and Easter on the bench; Rudski also started. Captain for the day was Luke Sherriff. Was this an opportunity for some to stake a claim for a regular place? Brive had also been able to select players returning from injury and needed a good win plus bonus points to maintain their hopes of reaching the next round.

The Castres ground, Stade Pierre Antoine, is a short walk from th town centre but it is not big – approximately 9,500 capacity – although the stands on three sides are very good. There were about 300 Quins supporters (according to the local paper) and even in the usual away supporters far corner we had a good ground view. And the pitch is very close. Just one drawback for an unofficial reporter – they don’t do (proper) programmes. I cheerfully paid for what turned out to be little more than an advertising flyer. But it was a fine clear day and the locals were anticipating a good showing from ‘CO’.

At this point it is usual to describe the match in an orderly sequential manner. But given the scale of the final score that will only depress me – and I could not think of enough different ways of saying “..from the Quins restart, Castres…” At least we got lots of practice – I counted about 12 restarts.
Anyway, Quins did kick off and after a period of play, Castres were camped in our 22 for a series of scrums. There were a number of offences against us (I noted 5), which they opted to re-scrummage but we held out and eventually earned our own penalty and cleared . After 15 minutes we were awarded a kickable penalty, which Dunne took for a 0 – 3 lead. This was matched soon afterwards and followed by a series of Castres attacks, from which they should have scored. We held out until the half an hour mark against some good varied attacking but eventually one of their loose forwards scored for an 8-3 lead. They then converted another penalty after more pressure and, despite a good Keogh run, the score remained at 11-3 at half time.
Castres certainly deserved to be in front but Quins had shown signs of increased desire.

The second half began spectacularly for Quins – after 4 minutes So’oialo took a quick penalty around our 10m line, jinked through the first line of the Castres defence and found Duffy up on his left as he met the full back; Duffy outsprinted the cover to the corner for a great try (and right in front of the Quins supporters!). The conversion was missed but that took it to within three points at 11-8. Unfortunately that was as near as we got and Castres started to put serious pressure on our line, resulting in a try from a lineout maul. Deane – not playing well per MS – was replaced by Reay, but by the 15 minute mark Castres had scored again from a loose lineout ball and it was beginning to slip away from us. This was guaranteed by the binning of Rudski, although, again per MS, for once he hadn’t done anything wrong.
During his absence 14 points were conceded as Castres took real advantage of the extra man. When they had a chance Quins kept trying and were rewarded for a pressure around the ruck when Sherriff scored to make it 37 – 13. But that was it and the last 15 minutes were a succession of Castres attacks as they realised what they could do and racked up over a point a minute to finish at 58 – 13. The only point of note for Quins was an excellent tackle by Duffy, but unfortunately carried out with Ace’s sense of timing, for which James was sent off.


As the game finished, the there was a strong feeling was of relief that the ordeal was over. By the end it was not a good performance. Castres were much the better side on the day, (counter) attacking at every opportunity, with some superb handling and support play. Quins matched them in spirit, certainly for the first two thirds of the game, but had few periods of sustained pressure and often just kicked away possesion to Castres. The tackling was at times weak or non-existent and some of the Castres tries were soft.
George had some good runs and the So’oialo / Duffy try was great, but Dunne had little to work on and the pack were always under pressure. Ace did a lot of charging but rarely made ground and Maama had no chance to run at Castres. It does not bode well for next weekend.
The refereee was Irish and was reasonably fair – I know that because all the French we spoke to thought he was awful. And, curiously, either too young or too old.

The town of Castres is a very pleasant place for a rugby weekend and it is a real rugby town. All the locals were very hospitable, particularly after the match, when they realised that we needed liquid solace. Oh, and the weather was excellent, warm and sunny. And my wife hasn’t a clue what to do with the black radish (excellent market) – at least she can’t say that I never bring her anything back.