By AlanQuin
February 28 2011

Harlequins lost a dull and turgid game at Reading to London Irish by 15 – 9 with all the points coming from penalty kicks.

Hard pressed as a result of international calls and injuries to put out a Premiership side of competitive ability, Harlequins nevertheless held the Exiles at bay and resisted any threats to their try line.  Equally they rarely threatened to cross their opponents line and the superiority of London Irish in both lineout and scrum limited the visitors’ opportunities.

But lack of discipline and the regular blast of the whistle sounded the death of any chance of coming away with more than the losing bonus point that was their only reward. The opening score went to the home side from Malone’s successful kick after five minutes for an offence at a scrum in front of the posts, although Clegg levelled the scores a couple of minutes later when Irish were offside at the breakdown, following an impressive break by Ollie Lindsay-Hague, making his Premiership debut.

A few minutes later, another offside allowed Clegg to give Harlequins a short-lived lead with a successful kick from the half-way line. A deliberate knock down by Marler, which might have merited a more severe penalty, gave Malone an opportunity to level the scores, but the kick slid outside the posts.  He had another chance shortly afterwards when, after finding a good touch in the Quins’ twenty-two, a knock-on at the lineout gave Irish a scrum and almost inevitably a penalty for another infringement at the scrum. This time Malone did not miss.    

Another splendid break by Lindsay-Hague amply displayed his speed and elusive qualities, but inevitably his attack was stopped and Irish again attacked and Malone regained the lead as Quins went offside just outside their twenty-two.  With less than five minutes of the half remaining, a typical Mike Brown counter from deep in the Quins’ half took play into Irish territory where Irish were penalised for an offence at the ruck. Clegg levelled the scores.

There was still time for Irish to have two more penalty kicks at the posts, but first Homer and then Malone each hit the posts, their failures leaving the half time score at 9 – 9.

The second half was little improvement on the first half.  A penalty after ten minutes allowed Homer to give Irish the lead. Ten minutes later a yellow card for Jordan Turner-Hall gave an opportunity to extend the lead to 15 – 9 which Malone took, despite the injury which led to his immediate replacement by Ryan Lamb. But Irish too found themselves reduced to fourteen men when Hodgson was sin-binned for a trip.  The reduction in numbers created neither more space nor any more scoring and a dull match ended dully.

After the match, Conor O’Shea admitted that the lack of discipline has cost Harlequins the game saying "The penalties killed us. Our ill-discipline cost us and we will have to address it. We could have nicked it but effectively we were kicked out of the game

Quins were badly hit by injury and O’Shea confirmed that Nick Evans broke his hand in training in the week and will be out of action for five to eight weeks. He said "We had a lot of difficulty in putting out a side and our injuries have stretched us to the absolute limit. Ugo Monye played today. He was up all night ill and spent two hours in bed here in a room at the Madejski this morning But he still made a massive contribution over the 80 minutes."