By Worried of Whitton
February 24 2005

As the Zurich Premiership reaches Round 17, Harlequins find themselves in hot water, both in terms of their performance and their league position after last weeks dire match against Worcester.

Appropriately this weeks’ opposition is Bath, and essentially it will be an “early Bath” with the kick off at the Recreation Ground scheduled for 14.15.  

Prior to kick off last Saturday, the match had already been pencilled in, by many supporters as a home win with a four points banked, and after that superb demolition of Gloucester by 14 men two weeks before, possibly five. The optimism had been increased  mid week after Mark Evans, State of the Nation Q and A session, followed by his exclusive revelation to the Evening Standard,  “our local paper” as he likes to call it, that Quins would be safe at reaching 37 Premiership points. At 14.00 on Saturday afternoon all was looking rosy, with the supporters’ full expectation that Harlequins would be occupying eight spot at the end of the afternoon. By 15.45 all such aspirations were hot air that had been firmly condensed by the cold afternoon air to produce just one, albeit precious, bonus point. Off the pitch, the dark clouds of conspiracy were fanned by the hot air in the press box and began roll across the Stoop as the crowds dwindled. Worcester certainly hadn’t read the supporters script but perhaps they had the conspirant’s script to follow to enable an away win. Whatever, it was the Warriors who finally managed to craft themselves a silk purse out of a sows ear of a game… or should that be a props’ ear? Essentially Quins were completely out scrummed the whole afternoon. Worcester had certainly done their homework and in the second half, did just what they needed to slow the game down and maintain their control.

Bath too had a torrid time of it down at Kingsholm, and it is debatable that they deserved to loose to a Gloucester side that faded fast after Vickery had departed with a broken arm. The Bath forwards began to take hold of the match with Scaysbrook touching down from a rolling maul, followed by a conversion by Malone. Bath were in control with their line out functioning well, even though the lead changed some eight times during the match with penalties being traded. In the last quarter a series of Bath errors allowed Gloucester back into the opposition half and they were beaten by the deciding drop goal from Davies, kicked from 40 yards out. 

The result of both Worcester and London Irish picking up valuable Premiership points last week end  has, for the time being, left the three teams in the mire ,although there are still six more matches to be played, and neither of them can consider themselves safe just yet. Coincidentally we still have to play the other two basement teams, both away Northampton on March 26^th and Leeds on April 17^th so the results of these games could well prove decisive. Mark Evans firmly believes that we can control our destiny by picking up 11 points in the next six games, after collecting 21 points from the previous eight games. Yes the maths say it can be done, BUT we are now beginning to close in on the end of the season, time is running out, and we cannot control or predict the outcomes of the matches of the teams in the lower half of the table. We may need all the help we can get and the news this week that we have signed Arwel Thomas from Llanelli Scarlets until the end of the season to provide cover at fly half, an area where it was recognised that we were exposed, due to injury and illness, is a promising start. As ME commented “To have a player of Arwel’s experience is a great boost to the squad given the importance of the six Zurich Premiership games we still have to play” .Fortunately, Thomas will be available for selection for the match against Bath on Saturday.

and so to Saturdays match…

Due to a series of injuries and International call ups, Bath are looking to entertain Quins on Saturday without a front row, or a back row or indeed any centres. I m certainly not making light of their misfortune, after all we too have been in similar situations before, but on paper and in practice there has probably not been a better time for Quins to pick up their first win at the Recreation Ground in many years, and we have to make this work to our advantage, as indeed any other team would do given the same circumstances. With a lengthy list of injuries and no less than five players on England duty, there had been much debate during the week on both message boards over the plausibility and ramifications of postponing the match especially as Bath would not be able to field a proper front row. Both of their first team props, Matt Stevens, replacing the injured Phil Vickery and Duncan Bell had been called up for the England squad.  Bath Rugby did indeed appeal to get the match postponed, but this was rejected by the RFU and in a strongly worded statement of intent, Bath Rugby said that “We will not forfeit this match and will field the strongest team available. The game is on!”  Co incidentally Leeds also have had front row problems this week and were having difficulty in fielding a side to play Saracens on Friday night, but have since signed three players to compensate for their loss. The Bath contingent in the England Squad also includes locks Danny Grewcock and Steve Borthwick and at centre Oily Barkley and as such leaves Bath with a seriously depleted choice for the team sheet.  Bath’s injury list of nine mid field players reads like a who’s who of Bath Rugby and includes Tindall, Flatman, Fleck, Lipman, Humphreys, Beattie, and Best.

Out of the fifteen professional matches between the two teams, Bath have won nine of them. At the risk of being over optimistic Quins have to be quietly confident at putting in a good performance and winning, against what will be, to all intents and purposes, a reinforced “seconds” side, and of whom we have comprehensively beaten at the Stoop this season 73-9. There is no doubt that despite their setbacks, the Bath team will be very motivated and do their best to cause us problems. The Quins team and management have to be aware of the significance of the situation and I cannot believe that they will let such an opportunity slip, although by no means will the game be an easy one. Following on from what I read earlier this week on another message board, in the back of my mind there is a little voice which keeps repeating that Harlequins run Saracens a close second at being the most consistent team for being inconsistent!

After last weekend, as the song goes it is a question of “pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again”.  Quins did squander a couple of opportunities in the first half last week, by not getting the ball out to the wings fast enough. I was not that convinced by Harder’s inclusion at centre last week and ideally I would have had Reay or James starting ahead of him, although I would have brought him on late in the game to battle his way through an expected tired defence.  

Scotty has spoken to advise that he team will not be announced until Friday afternoon, keeping the options open, especially with the weather conditions that have been forecast, and of course not forgetting the unique nature of the Recreation Ground pitch, and perhaps the choice of referee J.          It is good to see that Deane is once more available for selection as is Tiatia, who is returning from suspension and more importantly there are no new injuries to report after last week. We are therefore able to field a strong side, and perhaps we should re field the back line that was so successful against Gloucester.

So let’s ALL get behind the team this week, not only those travelling down for the match but also on this message board too, the outcome of this season still has some way to go.  We may be down, but we are certainly not out!

Come on you Quins!

 

NEC Harlequins:  Team to be announced on Friday February 25th

Bath Rugby:   Yet to be announced, however The Bath Chronicle suggests a probable line up of; 15 Matt Perry, 14 Andy Willaims, 13 Andrew Higgins, 12 Alex Crockett, 11 Joe Maddock, 10 Chris Malone, 9 Nick Walshe, 1 Heinrich Kok, 2 Lee Mears, 3 Christian Loader, 4 James Hudson, 5 Rob Fidler, 6 Geraint Lewis, 7 James Scaysbrook, 8 Zak Feaunati.

Replacements - from: Jonathan Humphreys, Laurence Ovens, Dave Ward, Dan Smith, Gareth Delve, Hugh Perrett, Martyn Wood, Ramiro Pez, Steve Booth.
Look here for Bath Team news

 

Match Officials:

Referee:  Steve Lander
Touch judges: Huw Jones Williams, Paul Emerson