By Prof
April 15 2005

With no first team action for Harlequins this weekend you may be looking for another game to watch. Why not head down to Old Deer Park, Richmond to watch our Academy U19 team take on London Welsh in the English Under 19 knock-out cup semi-final.

This will be one of your last chances to see the Academy side in action as the Academy will not have a specific team next season. So far this season the Academy sides (Wanderers and U19) have Won 21; Drawn 1; Lost 7. 

The Wanderers side is a mixture of U21 and U19 players and can call on anyone in the Academy whereas the U19 team is obviously an age group team.

In their last four games the Academy sides have lost to a strong Bedford 2ndXV (35-21) which contained many players who had appeared in the Premiership over the years while the Wanderers were almost solely an U19s team except for scrum half Duncan James and hooker Cameron Dott. Before that they thrashed a Combined Services U21 side 53-6 with wing Charlie Amesbury scoring a hat-trick. The game before was the quarter final for the  English Under 19 knock-out cup where the Cornish side Redruth were on the end of a 49-5 defeat. Redruth hadn’t conceded a try before this game but the young Quins side ignored this and ran in eight tries through wing Kiba Richards (2), fullback Charlie Amesbury, No8 Andy Hodgkins, captain and lock George Robson, fly half Mike Brown and centre Adam Thompstone. The game before that the Wanderers had a famous victory over the England U18 (Four Home Unions Squad) with Luke Cousins scoring 17 points with the boot and Kiba Richards getting the Quins try.

 

In the 2004/5 U19 Cup the Quins side have so far beaten:

Bury St Edmunds, 30-10, Tries: Mark Skye, Tom Powell, Dene Richards and Alex Fisher

Ipswich, 71-0, Tries: Alex Fisher, Jonny Wehbe Charlie Amesbury, James Inglis, Richard Parker, Kiba Richards, Steve Jay and Lloyd Cole.

Bishops Stortford, 17-11, Tries: Johnny Wehbe, Chris Robshaw and James Inglis

Bromley, 57-3, Tries: Steven Jay, Kiba Richards (3), Andy Hodgkins, Jordan Turner-Hall, Mike Brown (2), George Robson and Alex Ayling

Widden Old Boys, 26-12, Tries: Charlie Amesbury,  Kiba Richards, Andy Hodgkins and Mike Brown

Redruth, 49-5, Tries: Kiba Richards (2), Charlie Amesbury, Andy Hodgkins, George Robson, Mike Brown and Adam Thompstone

 

And so to the semi-final, this will kick off at 2pm at London Welsh’s ground in Old Deer Park, Richmond for what will be a very hard game. The London Welsh U19s play in the Welsh leagues so come up against strong opposition week in week out. Looking at their recent match reports they seem to be a similar side to Quins – freely scoring with a strong pack to secure the ball.

It should be a cracking game and it will be one of the last chances you will have to see this team of youngsters playing together.

NB The Powergen Cup Final is happening at HQ too so leave in plenty of time to get to Old Deer Park