A brief sparkle and then it was all over
Friday 14th April 2017: Aviva Premiership Round 20: Harlequins v Exeter Chiefs at the Stoop, kick off 7.45pm: Result – Harlequins 26 Exeter Chiefs 39: Harlequins 0 league points, Exeter Chiefs 5 league points. Harlequins now effectively out of the running for a top four play-off place and even notions of finishing in the first six in order to qualify for Europe next season beginning to melt away. Exeter Chiefs potentially still in line to host a home semi-final in the Premiership play-offs.
Exeter are a club that I admire very much. They’re a tough, no-nonsense outfit with their own style that nobody relishes playing against. Under their excellent coach Rob Baxter they’ve amassed a squad of big ugly forwards, plus over time also some skilful backs, who possess few airs and graces but work very hard indeed. In that sense they’re the antithesis of Quins in approach but – unlike Saracens or Leicester Tigers, who are easy to hate for all the obvious reasons – they’re at the acceptable end of the spectrum.
My relationship with the facts is always tenuous but I believe these boys from the West Country not only arrived in south-west London for the game last night with a five-match winning streak against Quins, but left after it with a new Premiership record of 30 league points out of their last possible 30 (i.e. six consecutive – four-try bonus point – victories on the trot).
To be frank, in prospect the omens were not good.
Quins had reached the post-Six Nations stretch of the season needing to win everything in sight to be sure of a play-off place.
Over the past three weeks our hopes of a home semi-final … then of a play-off place at all … and then even of finishing fifth or sixth … have gradually evaporated, rather in the style of a mountain climber devoid of ropes, karabiners or belay devices who began clinging by his fingertips to the summit rock edge and, inch by inch has been losing his grip with nothing but a 300 foot drop below.
All that said, last night’s feisty, full-on, encounter lacked little in the entertainment stakes.
Quins were evidently well pumped up – home form being one of their few plusses – and for once not only came out of the blocks with their guns free of their holsters but ready for use.
I’m bound to admit that this was one of the most-Quins-like performances they’ve managed this entire dire season. From Danny Care downwards there was a zip about their attitude and dynamism that was heart-warming and energising. Some of their all-action driving, off-loading and inter-passing came from the Harlem Globetrotters school of sports entertainment and revived long-buried fans’ memories of the glory years of 2011 to 2012.
Ultimately, however, although for about 60 minutes the teams were locked in a nip-and-tuck 50:50 arm-wrestle, Quins faded away in the last fifteen minutes as only they can.
If this had been the 5th of November rather than 14th April, I might have gone to my adjective-locker for the simplest of metaphors.
If the Exeter Chiefs – like the other 2017 Premiership heavyweights contenders – deal in Trump-familiar ‘Mothers Of All Bombs’ ordinance, the boys in the multi-coloured quartered shirts are rather more an attendee at a kids’ party holding a large £10 sparkler which initially fizzles and then suddenly bursts into spectacular life … but then soon dies down again and ends as nothing more than a smoldering stick in the hand giving off with a faint and semi-unpleasant sulphur-tinged smell.
Or to put it another way:
Quins scored spectacular tries within minutes of both the opening whistle and second stanza.
Meanwhile, despite the intensity of the struggle, Exeter played as if they knew their chances would come if they just kept pressurising.
Within sight of the last five minutes of the game, via an interception and then two well-worked moves they notched three late tries – to which Quins’ contribution was its defence opening up like the Red Sea – and scooted away for a five-point (five try) victory.
One could have described Quins’ late Tim Visser try as a consultation, but it wasn’t really.
