By Worried of Whitton
November 25 2005

…with apologies to Simon and Garfunkel. This Saturday sees Harlequins once more away from home as they run out at College Way to play their 6th round Powergen Trophy match against Bridgwater and Albion RFC, down on the Somerset Levels.

Kick off on November 26^th is at 15.00 with the home side hoping for a sellout crowd of 4,000 for what will be the biggest match in the Club’s history.

Bridgwater coach Stuart Woodhouse, said "This is such an exciting draw, when we heard the news the office and all the players were all jumping around." Ironically the match report for their Round 5 game ended with “The sixth round of the Powergen Trophy will be drawn on Monday 7th November and drawn home or away Albion are hoping for a big name club......... Harlequins would be quite nice!!”  Their players and supporters should not be disappointed as Harlequins Director of Rugby; Dean Richards has stated that "It’s fair to say that for Bridgwater we’ll be taking a strong side. We’re in the competition to win it”. He added "We’ve enjoyed our travels, we’ve been warmly welcomed wherever we’ve gone and the quality of opposition we’ve faced has been very good. We knew it’d be difficult going to some places but what’s impressed me is that having to go into the unknown, where grounds and facilities are very different, hasn’t fazed our players at all.”  I understand, however that Bridgwater are a little disappointed with the take up of tickets from Harlequins supporters, which may be in part due  to the mix up with tickets for the International match at Twickenham, however this has to be tempered by the array of Rugby legends  on the field.

After last weeks superb performance when they thrashed the Cornish Pirates, the Harlequins team are ensured that they will be  fully prepared for Bridgwater by winning their  mid week, warm up match against Samoa who meet England, also on Saturday afternoon!. On current form, unbeaten in all league, cup and international matches this season, it is unthinkable not to expect a Harlequins victory but as we’ve seen there will be no complacency by those in the quartered shirts. They will work to ensure yet another fine win. A number of facts about this game have arisen during the week, RleQuin has pointed out that our win against Samoa has equaled our best ever run of victories set way back in the 1908/09 season, so a win on Saturday will break that record.  History shows every time that Harlequins have been drawn against teams from lower division they have won and as Louise posted earlier this week, Harlequins last played Bridgwater 32 years ago in 1973 with Quins winning 12-6.

In preparation for Saturday, Harlequins have had two glorious wins this week, against Cornish Pirates and Manu Samoa. Both matches seem to have followed the same format, with containment and playing as much of the game in the oppositions half for the first forty minutes, and to take any points on offer by kicking the penalty. In the second half open up and go for tries, and then to capitalize on the opposition when they are reduced to 14 men.

Bridgwater and Albion RFC are a National Three South side. They currently lie in sixth place, and of the eight league matches they have played this season they have won four and lost four, most recently last Saturday going down 19-12 away to Cinderford. In the Powergen Trophy they have played all of their matches at home, beating Clifton 35-25 in round 3, Reading 42-28, in round 4 and Southend 19-12, in round 5.To find out a little more about Bridgwater RFC I contacted their club office and their Club President Mike Berry very kindly sent me a brief history of the club. 

The current club is an amalgamation of two local clubs The Bridgwater Football Club founded in 1875 and the Bridgwater Albion Football Club founded in 1891. The two clubs continued independently until the out break of the First World War which took its toll on both clubs. The Committees of the two clubs unanimously agreed that the two Bridgwater clubs be merged and remained Bridgwater and Albion Rugby Football Club. The inaugural match took place on 26^th February 1919 against local rivals Taunton.  During the Second World War The club’s Taunton Road ground was requisitioned and ploughed up for Allotments, whilst the club continued to play as Bridgwater Barbarians. In 1946 the Broadway ground was repossessed and returned to its former state. Redevelopment in the 1950 s saw the loss of part of the ground to a new dual carriageway; however a new clubhouse was added in 1963. Always pioneers in the game Bridgwater became the first club west of Bristol to establish full match floodlighting, with game against Bristol inaugurating the lights. Bristol won 40-3. Speculation about possible development of the ground continued and in the 1990’s developers acting on behalf of Safeway Supermarket agreed a deal with the club to sell the site and move to a suitable alternative site. This was situated on a former waste tip, just like our very own Stoop! but the club insisted that the new facilities had to be ready for them to move into before they vacated their old ground. The club played their last match at the Broadway ground at the end of April 1994.

Their new £2.1 million facilities opened in September 1994, included two pitches a purpose built club house, grandstand incorporating changing rooms, and is now known as College Way, Bath Road, Bridgwater. The club history states that this presents probably the best facilities in the West Country and beyond, however with the changes planned in Exeter and Penzance this is probably about to change. 

In announcing their team Harlequins have done Bridgewater no favours. According to the Bridgwater site Harlequins have made six changes to last week’s starting line up. It is thought that some of the key players from last weekend are being rested, ready for next weeks match at Bedford. Tom Williams who had a good match against Samoa returns at full back instead of Duffy, Vass is in for So’oialo who adds another international cap to his collection this weekend against England at Twickenham. Two thirds of the front row are swapped out as Mike Worsley lines up alongside Jimmy Richards. Pablo Bouza also returns to the pack from his international duty with Argentina. It should be noted that the Harlequins team still has to be confirmed, as details were not available as this article was published.

On seeing the team sheet Bridgwater’s player coach, Stuart Woodhouse announced “I am very pleased that Harlequins coach Dean Richards, is showing our team and club some respect. Our boys are really looking forward to pitting their wits against heroes of theirs. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for many of them"

We can comfortably expect a Quins win on Saturday, the question remains as to the margin of that win, which will produce a further boost to the players ahead of two very important back to back league games in the first two weeks of December.  

Bridgwater and Albion’s website is at  www.barfc.co.uk

 

 

 NEC Harlequins:
15. Tom Williams, 14. Simon Keogh, 13. Tosh Masson, 12. Jordan Turner-Hall, 11. Ugo Monye, 10. Andrew Mehrtens, 9. Ian Vass, 1. Mike Worsley, 2. Jimmy Richards, 3. Ricky Nebbett, 4. Pablo Bouza, 5. Simon Miall, 6. Andre Vos (Capt.), 7. Luke Sherriff, 8. Nick Easter
Replacements: 16. Tani Fuga, 17. Lorne Ward, 18. Kevin Burke, 19. Chris Robshaw, 20. Adrian Jarvis, 21. Charlie Amesbury, 22. Mike Brown 

Bridgwater and Albion:.
15, Jervis Manupenu,14, Mike Grifiths,13, Faapolu Solefai,12, Andy Webber, 11, Gavin Hancock, 10, Andrew George, 9, Stuart Woodhouse, 8, Paul Edwards,  7, Chris Hansen, 6, Ben Purce, 5, Dan Taylor, 4, Marshal Cormack, 3, James Bryant, 2, Mathew Hastie, 1, Wayne Stiling  
Replacements: tba

Match Officials:
tbc