By Prof
October 8 2004

So it’s five losses in a row for us so far and Gloucester won their first four games before going down to The Rec and losing to their local rivals Bath. Last week Gloucester were outplayed at the set piece, something that they rarely do, their kicking was erratic too – sound familiar?

Quins had a terrible trip to Worcester when a team made up of a large number of ex-Harlequins  put on an excellent display to beat the visitors, again it was the set piece and kicking from hand that was the main problem.

So can Quins take heart that Gloucester lost last week, well in a way, yes, but, and it’s a big but, the side that Gloucester are putting out this weekend looks much better on paper than last week’s losing side.

Gloucester are starting their new signing, Springbok international Christo Bezuidenhout, for the first time, by all accounts he is a huge man (6’2”, 19 stone) and extremely powerful. Phil Vickery is starting on the bench after being out for five months recovering from a back operation, he came through a half for the A team in their narrow loss to Wasps in the week. So Quins’ front row is going to have to be playing to it’s full potential to make an impact.

It is a great shame that Maurice Fitz Gerald hasn’t recovered from the knock he picked up against Bath, the scrum has looked much more stable when he has been playing. This means that the England U19 tight head Mark Lambert will get his first ZP start. Lambert is an excellent prospect, he’s big (bigger even than Bezuidenhout at 19st1lb and 6’3”), technically good and is a very good ball carrier but he’s very young for a tight head. It will certainly be a steep learning curve for him. With Fitz Gerald out and Worsley still injured it means that Jon Dawson comes onto the bench.

Roy Winters starts in place of Karl Rudzki this week on the back of some fine performances as captain of the 2ndXV.

The other major changes in the packs are in the back row, Quins are starting Nick Easter for the first time. Easter is on trial with the club for three months, he came on last week against Worcester. He is a solid flanker who has a very direct running style and good hands. Gloucester have two players returning, Andy Hazell and James Forrester, both who have been real thorns in Quins side in previous meetings.

Quins are starting their new scrum half signing, Matt Henjak, this week, he played in the win against London Irish in Monday’s A fixture and he looks very good indeed. He has a fast flat pass, isn’t afraid to put himself about and bosses the forwards well. If the pack are under pressure he should still be able to provide the back line with good ball. It will be interesting to see how he does against Andy Gomersall who is probably England’s first choice scrum half at the moment.

There should be an excellent battle in the centres with the experienced pairing of Greenwood and Dafydd James facing up to sevens star Henry Paul and Samoan Terry Fanolua. I still like the look of our centre pairing, we certainly didn’t see much from it at Sixways but let’s hope they get good ball to attack with on Saturday.

Another good battle should be on the wings with three young England wings on show (Monye, Garvey and Simpson-Daniel) along with one of Quins’ most consistent performers this season George Harder.

So what of a prediction, well my heart as always says Quins but my head is telling my heart to shut up. It will be a hard fought game, that’s for sure. We need to come out all guns blazing otherwise the Gloucester pack might get the upper hand and that could be disastrous.

One thing is that the pressure won’t be as bad this week as last week, no one is expecting us to win whereas last week most were predicting a Quins victory. Don’t get me wrong we desperately need a win to give the club a lift and to close the gap with the rest of the league but the pressure of expectation isn’t there this week so hopefully we’ll see a more composed team performance.

It will certainly be a baptism of fire for the new boys especially Lambert who will be against a very experienced and powerful front row but it’s exactly the sort of game you should dream about playing in.

One thing everyone wants to see is Quins playing their own game plan not just reacting to the opposition, we have only seen them playing as a team for short patches in the games so far this season. Let’s hope the team put a good performance together. As has been said it will be hard for the traveling fans to make themselves heard in the cauldron that is Kingsholm but let’s see what we can do.

Player to watch: Matt Henjak

Gloucester:
15. Jon Goodridge; 14. Marcel Garvey; 13. Terry Fanolua; 12. Henry Paul; 11. James Simpson-Daniel; 10. Duncan McRae; 9. Andy Gomarsall; 1. Christo Bezuidenhout; 2. Olivier Azam; 3. Gary Powell; 4. Peter Buxton; 5. Alex Brown; 6. Jake Boer (c); 7. Andy Hazell; 8. James Forrester
Replacements: 16. Chris Fortey, 17. Phil Vickery, 18. Terry Sigley, 19. Adam Eustace, 20. Adam Balding, 21. Alex Page, 22. James Bailey

NEC Harlequins:
15. Gavin Duffy; 14. George Harder; 13. Will Greenwood ; 12. Dafydd James; 11. Ugo Monye; 10. Jeremy Staunton; 9. Matt Henjak; 1. Ceri Jones; 2. Tani Fuga; 3. Mark Lambert; 4. Roy Winters; 5. Simon Miall; 6. Nick Easter; 7. Andre Vos (Capt.); 8. Tony Diprose
Replacements: 16. Ace Tiatia; 17. Jon Dawson; 18. Karl Rudzki; 19. Opeta Palepoi; 20. Luke Sherriff ; 21. Simon Keogh; 22. Adrian Jarvis