Harlequins
The Good & The Bad: Saracens v Quins
By Battering Ram Winger
April 19 2010
So, we were Leeds-ed... THE GOOD -
1). The lineout
Both ours and snatching theirs (although I'd rather we didn't slap the ball into our own try area!) were impressive. Usually we win a lot but it's often wobbly ball. We managed to secure pretty good possession (but...).
2). Some individual performances
Percival was good, Brooker until his injury, Mike Brown in patches, Easter struggled manfully and Strettle, when the pitch wasn't betraying his footing, danced a merry dance. But...
3). TV fame for some of you lot at last!
Keep smiling, folks!
THE BAD
1). Our luck
Losers often moan about bad luck, but every 50/50 ball Saracens threw went to hand (I thought Barnes was going die in ecstacy on several occasions), all the loose ball bounced to them, Evans going down injured just before the game, anything we tried failed.
2). Some Individual performances
Danny Care's passing is absolutely horrendous. It's gotten worse and worse, going anywhere but to the man he's passing to. I can see why fans of other teams hate him in an England shirt when he throws such garbage at people. He also has no control over a game (see below). JTH has looked terrible since coming back, missing tackles and the like and is a shadow of the confident player we have seen.
3). Who is taking the decisions?
Because I can't see anyone leading out there. True, we had an inexperienced 10 so you can't look to him for Evans-like playmaking. So the Test scrum half should step up, so should the pack. I am willing to accept that playing Clegg (at short notice), JTH and Lowe is not going into a match with guys who know how to give guidance to each other, and that Saracens are lucky to have a team with guys like Marshall, Jackson, Hougaard and De Kock who are wonderful examples of experienced campaigners, but ugh. At times we were a total rabble, chucking the ball from one player to another like it was a ticking bomb - eventually someone got the explosion as a posse of Saracens smashed them down. We were getting continually pinged for ruck offences, why did someone not tell the team to simply STOP DOING IT?
4). Support runners?
Schalk Brits is nowhere near as good as Barnes makes him out (if he was, he'd still be in the S14 vying for a Test shirt), but he is a good player, but when he and Sarries broke, they broke in numbers. When Guest broke near the end, no one was within 20 yards of him and we were lucky he had the nous to avoid a penalty to allow us to recycle for a try.
5). Wembley turf
True, Ugo got his try due to the fact he fell over and avoided the tackle as the turf gave way underneath him, but shoot whoever chose that surface, it's a disgrace.
I didn't ever think we would win this match, Sarries' merry band of hired guns and homegrown talent are a better team than us, but this was an embarrassment of a performance, especially on TV.
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Stumbleupon19/04/2010 12:48
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I'd say the scrum performed well too. The much praised Sarries front 5 didn't look anything special to be honest. The fact that they took a kick to touch rather than another 5m scrum showed we were a match for them.
Receiving a kick in or near the 22, passing it towards the middle of the pitch and in so doing gaining no territory while the opposition have had time to bear down on the unfortunate recipient.
Standing so deep that three passes in the backs result in a net loss of several yards by the time the first tackle comes in.
Touch rugby style tackling.
Mexican waves. Watch the match!
(Seemingly) drunken Quins fan using the c word right behind my kids.
The good.
Mike Brown does not give up.
Chris Brooker really coming through now.
Karl Dickson looked excellent in the short time he got to play, compared with a pretty poor performance from Care.
40 minutes from south side of the stadium to home. The benefit of living along the Metropolitan Line.
But he desperately needs to spend every day doing several hundred passes under pressure with the threat of severe beatings if he keeps chucking it any old where.
Barnes said something about the Saull 2nd try being like the Crusaders counter-attacking, he had a point as you noted. Crusaders players live for the chance of snaffling the ball and then charging through; as soon as there's a chance at a ruck they pile people in and as soon as they can break, EVERYONE gets involved.
O Fortuna, velut luna statu variabilis,
semper crescis aut decrescis
What makes it look so amazing is the fact that English teams don't run good support lines for breaking players as a matter of course.
Quote:We might have even taken a point if brown didn't get sent off. But in my view it was the ernst joubert try that really summed up our performance. Making horrendous mistakes near our try line.Quinky Kin
I'd echo the point about Mike Brown. He just never gives up. If the whole team had that spirit, we might have snatched the bonus point at least.
Their players looked up for it, very mobile, flying from ruck to ruck & very supportive of their player with the ball.
An old Quins problem not really looking for work throughout the pitch.
Also another the old problem no leaders......who are they?
Quote:quin guyQuote:We might have even taken a point if brown didn't get sent off. But in my view it was the ernst joubert try that really summed up our performance. Making horrendous mistakes near our try line.Quinky Kin
I'd echo the point about Mike Brown. He just never gives up. If the whole team had that spirit, we might have snatched the bonus point at least.
Brown was just the player left without a chair when the music stopped. We were repeatedly warned for infringing at the ruck, didn't stop and he got the bulllet. Yes, he should have stopped but it could have been anyone the way we were going. Still silly, though.
Quote:Battering Ram Winger
Brown was just the player left without a chair when the music stopped. We were repeatedly warned for infringing at the ruck, didn't stop and he got the bulllet. Yes, he should have stopped but it could have been anyone the way we were going. Still silly, though.
Funny, cos I didn't see it like that and I was wondering what others thought. Clearly it had very little relevance to the outcome, other than maybe the margin of victory, but just as a point of discussion I'm interested. From what I heard on the TV, Quins were warned roughly half way through the first half, whereas Mike was carded on 58 mins. Maybe I missed further warnings, but at the time the commentators said something to the effect that "yes, well Quins had been warned...er... in the first half". To me it looked very harsh to card Brown because we "had been warned" after our previous offence at the breakdown...30 odd minutes ago. Then there was the penalty itself. He was pinged for coming in at the side of a ruck, except it didn't look to me like there was a ruck for him to come in at the side of. There were three or four players on the floor around the ball following a tackle, but I saw no ruck. Then again I couldn't bring myself to watch any replays of the game, so I am just going on what I saw as it happened. What did anyone else think?
Quote:Battering Ram Winger
we were repeatedly pinged for it
Were we? I didn't think we had been since the first half warning. That's my point.
- Huff and puff for 40 minutes but any advantage thrown away by a mass of penalties/schoolboy errors.
- Give up the ghost after half time.
- Lots more errors and indiscipline with Quins permanently on the back foot.
- Someone gets sin-binned ensuring there is no chance of a come-back.
- Quins score late as the opposition lose interest with all the points safely in the bag.
