By Alanquin
August 19 2013

Harlequins disposed of Gloucester in the first knock-out round and then fell at the penultimate hurdle, losing to Auckland at the semi-final stage. They then succumbed to Buenos Aires to finish in fourth place overall and highest placed of the three Premiership sides.

The quarter final against JPMorgan winners, Gloucester found Quins a score down in the first minute as despite a fine run by Jordan Burns he was stopped and possession turned over for Gloucester to break away and score.  When Quins next managed to get the ball in hand, careful, intelligent and accurate passing eventually put Burns in for the try which Walker converted to level the scores.  The first half ended level at 7 – 7.

A knock-on by Gloucester from the restart gave Quins an attacking scrum just outside their opponents’ twenty-two, but they themselves knocked on. They won the next scrum against the head and Charlie Walker darted over for a simple try that he duly converted.  Another score followed very shortly from Trayfoot and thereafter good defence held Gloucester at bay.

Harlequins’ opponents in the semi-final were Auckland.  The two had played the previous evening in the pool stages and Quins had won.  But this time the New Zealanders had moved up a gear or two.  Exerting great pressure in attack, Auckland were soon two tries up and it took another fine run from Jordan  Burns to reduce the gap to 7 – 14 at the interval. 

An Auckland try almost immediately from the restart was answered by a fine break from Walker and an excellent offload for Mantella to finish and take the score to 14 – 21.  Then a yellow card for Dave Ward reduced Quins to six men and their opponents soon exploited the gap for two more tries and a win 14 – 31.

Buenos Aires won the third/fourth place play off 31 – 7.