By Quins4life
March 17 2016

Where on earth can we start in the dissection of Friday night? On the face of it a 35-28 victory and scoring 4 tries meaning a try bonus point would have been warmly welcomed pre-match considering our poor run of form. For 60 minutes of the game, Quins were fantastic and looked dangerous every time they attacked. Lowe showed how integral he is to this Quins backline and Dickson, who was also retuning from injury, looked back to his best, full of energy and controlling the game fantastically. Botica has another solid, all-round game, but Walker was the standout. He is a fantastic finisher and showed it on Friday by adding a further two tries to his tally, taking him the top of charts, which is crazy when most consider him to be 2nd choice. Also I thought his defence was a lot better too considering he was up against Agulla and Rokodugini, two of the stronger wingers in the Premiership. In the pack, honourable mentions to the front row, which looked fantastic ball in hand. Luamanu was a beast again, but best forward was Easter who was his brilliant best and showed people that there is life left in the legs!

Despite all these positives, there was a worrying drop off in performance for the final twenty minutes in which Bath went from 35-6 down to 35-28. Bath should have never been allowed back into that game and if there were up competing with us I would have been very irritated, but the reality is they aren’t so it shouldn’t affect us. I was more concerned by the apparent injuries to Ward and Easter and I will be praying they are not too serious. The Bath comeback wasn’t great but Quins were fantastic on Friday night and if anything the comeback should focus the players’ minds for the task next weekend. 

Before the Bath game I said the next two games were must-win for us but actually I should have said they were must not lose because I did not care about the way we won, just that we did and that fully applies to this weekend too. We have completed half the job against Bath, but now we have yet another big game, this time against Worcester Warriors. Worcester have had some sort resurgence over the last month or so having won 3 out of their last 4 games, including good wins at home to Sale and Gloucester, and a massive win away against fellow strugglers Newcastle. Whilst a month or so I would have said they were in a dog-fight to stay in the league with London Irish, I now think they are a victory or so away from being safe, which is great for Dean Ryan’s men. I am a huge fan of Dean Ryan and I am glad to see him having success at Worcester and I think now it will take a great dip from Worcester and an even greater turnaround by Irish to see them relegated now 

So despite only coming up this season to the Premiership, the Worcester side is littered with quality players. There back three is up there with some of the most potent in the Premiership and we are going to have to work hard and kick well to avoid giving Cooper Vuna and Heem space outwide. But their main man and whose arrival has signalled the start of this good run of form is Springbok international, Fracois Hougaard. His experience and sheer quality has been a real boost to Worcester and he could be the difference between them staying up or not. He is a great acquisition from Ryan and someone who I’d love at Quins if he wants to stay in the Premiership after this season. In the pack, they have a lot of experience through having the like of O’Callaghan, Dowson and van Velze, all of whom are used to big games at the other end of leagues tables. 

Team Selection 

Well if I had it my way I would make maybe one or two change to the team that beat Bath on Friday night. I think the most obvious change will be bringing in OLH on the wing replacing Cheeseman, not that the young fella did anything wrong on Friday as he made this tackles and also made some good carries too. The other change would be brining Twomey or Matthews in for Merrick. I don’t know why but I am yet to be convinced by Merrick as I think he can be a bit headless at times when trying to make big hits, which means he then just falls off them so I would probably give Twomey his first start since his return to get him up and running again. Sometimes they rotate the tighthead but I don’t see the point this week as Sinckler was fantastic last week and deserves to keep his place I think. The slight worry was the knocks that forced both Ward and Easter off at the end, with Ward having his bicep heavily iced at the end of the game. Easter apparently was a slight knock but I think Ward will be missing unfortunately so I hope Buchanan is fit again to start as Gray hasn’t been near his best for a while. 

My Prediction Quins team; Lambert, Buchanan, Sinckler, Horwill, Twomey, Luamanu, Wallace, Easter; Dickson, Botica, OLH, Sloan, Lowe, Walker, Chisholm. 



Worcester team vs Gloucester last week; Pennell; Heem, Olivier, Mills, Vuna; Heathcote, Hougaard; Rapava Ruskin, Annett, Schonert, O'Callaghan, Barry, Dowson, Kirwan, van Velze 

This was the team that played Gloucester and I do not think they will change much this weekend either if anything. 


This weekend is another big game for us and a game we must win to keep us up competing for the top 4. This is another weekend where our rivals are all playing each other and have tough games and this is an opportunity to catch teams and put a gap between others. I watched the Worcester game last weekend, and whilst I thought Gloucester were off the pace for a lot of the game, I thought Worcester played very well and it is clear to see the impact that Hougaard has had at the club and we are going to have to watch him very carefully. I think this game has the makings of a very close and tense encounter but I do wonder how much the last couple of weeks have taken out of Worcester having had some very intense and emotional games. Last week was a big derby and the week before was a big relegation fixtures so I do think this could have been quite draining on them mentally as well as physically. Also with a big game against London Irish the following week there could be a chance Ryan rotates his team slightly. 

Anyway back on to Quins. We played well last weekend and we looked like the side that played so well in the first half of this season. We attacked the spaces and our pack fronted up against a very strong and physical opposition. I think a similar performance will be enough against Worcester but we are going to have to make sure that we don’t fall off for a part of the game because you cannot afford to do so in this league. Yellow cards and injuries did not help but it is not an excuse to fall off so drastically. 

All things considered, I think we’ll get a win and go into the last part of the season with hopes both domestically and in Europe. This is finally the last game of a frustrating 6 Nations period for the club and with a win and our returning internationals I think we’ll be in a decent position for an assault on the top 4. Once again lets create a great Stoop atmosphere and get our team over the line! 

My prediction; Quins 29 Worcester 18