A close run but wonderful thing
Sunday 17th September: English Premiership rugby, Round 3: Wasps v Harlequins at the Ricoh Stadium, Coventry: Wasps 21, Harlequins 24: League position after 3 rounds – Wasps 2nd on 10 points, 1 behind leaders Exeter Chiefs (whom they play next weekend); Harlequins 5th equal with 9 points.
I’m not going to lie. Despite my ‘withdrawal’ from the club during the off season, yesterday afternoon from 2.30pm I was sitting in my favourite armchair, wearing a sleeveless replica first team Quins shirt circa 2007, watching endless live coverage of the build-up to this game, the game itself, and the post-match interviews. Committed fans of any team sport club will be able to empathise with my experience of beginning the afternoon in a state of tense, knee-jiggling, anticipatory trepidation; watching the entirety of the match as if transfixed; and gradually becoming more and more agitated as the climax unfolded and Quins held on to take the victory.
Let me get the clichéd background out of the way first.
Both Wasps and the Harlequins clubs originated when the rugby section of the Hampstead football club folded in the mid-19th Century because of the incongruity that few if any of its members any longer hailed from Hampstead – one lot became Quins (opting for a name beginning with ‘H’ so that they needn’t change the team’s ‘HFC’ logo) in 1866 and the other became Wasps the following year.
Of rugby Premiership clubs, clearly there’s an eternal (bragging rights) ‘derby rivalry’ between the Greater London ones Wasps, Saracens, Harlequins and London Irish.
Wasps, who have had their money troubles over the past two decades (who hasn’t?), have operated successively from Sudbury, High Wycombe and now latterly Coventry – all of which travels have prompted derision from the others, especially Quins, simply on the basis that calling themselves ‘London Wasps’ (as they did until about eighteen months ago) was a misnomer.
They managed their transformation from being verge-of-bankruptcy down-and-outs to all-conquering glossy high-spending owners of the Richoh Stadium by the traditional route (ask any Premiership soccer team).
In other words, finding themselves a multi-millionaire owner who has now set them up royally via buying said stadium and about twenty-five elite and very-expensive mercenary overseas players, in the style of the ‘£50 million-and-counting losses black hole’, South-African-money-plus-Nigel-Wray-backed Saracens.
For fans of a bog-standard (i.e. hard up) ‘lah-de-dah reputation, but in fact on their uppers’ club like Quins, what’s not to hate about Wasps?
The big headline about yesterday’s result is that, after no fewer than 20 consecutive home matches at the Richoh Stadium without defeat (a run going back to December 2015), Wasps surrendered that record to the one team they – and others – love to hate, namely their arch-rivals in the multi-coloured quartered shirts.
The icing on the cake for the victors yesterday came from the counter-intuitive nature of the result.
Wasps spend most of last season sweeping all before them bar Saracens and even a Quins fan would be churlish not to admit that they were unlucky to fall at the final hurdle in the Premiership. They bought well (again) in the close season and now have a squad capable of mixing it with any club in the Northern Hemisphere for the next two to three years.
Meanwhile – save for a run of about three-and-a-half seasons leading up to and just beyond their sole Premiership league victory in 2012 – Quins have been saddled with twin reputations for being a bit ‘soft’ upfront and/or generally when the business end of things get critical … and (in the style of French rugby players) predictably ‘hopeless’ on the road.
Quins have always been a bit of a ‘hit and miss’ team. One week they could play like the Harlem Globetrotters, flinging the ball about from anywhere on the field and generating awe, excitement and even sometimes envy in supporters of opposition clubs with their dazzling inter-play and creativity. And then perform like a bunch of kindergarten girls the next, especially if playing away from home.
Why this was and is the case seems inexplicable. This isn’t just a fan stating it, the Stoop does have a special atmosphere unlike any other in the Premiership – it’s a large part of what makes being a Quins supporter such a joy. But it is not an intimidating place, it’s not a venue that opposition supporters fear to visit.
Friend or foe, you know what you’re going to get at the Stoop.
Plenty of points, plenty of thrills and spills and – most often, even after a game in which fortunes have fluctuated wildly – a clear winner, one way or the other. Oppositions know that, however fired-up and on their mettle the hosts are, when playing at the Stoop (unlike some other away venues) you’re always going to have a chance of winning.
Contrast that with one of the burdens of being a Quins supporter – the away trip.
In both 2015/2016 and (particularly) 2016/2017 Quins became something of a stereotypical joke. We could barely scrape a win on the road even if in advance the home team had wrapped it up in festive paper, tied a bow around it, and posted it to us (first class) three days before the game actually took place.
And so to yesterday.
Totally against type – and indeed your author’s expectations – the Quins squad had travelled very ‘fired up’, even if in part this may have because (the Richoh’s reputation and recent past drubbings still seared in the memory) fear of humiliation can sometimes give you adrenalin-fuelled verve and determination.
They knew they had to start fast, and did. And the pack deliberately got in the faces of the Wasps forwards – a feisty time of it had been predicted with relish by BT Sport pundits Lawrence Dallaglio (ex-Wasps) and Ugo Monye (Quins) who were both forecasting a home victory by at least 7 points.
Step forward in particular our props: Kyle Sinckler, who eventually got sin-binned for his troubles in the second half, and (inevitably) Mohican-haircutted ‘bad boy’ Joe Marler, who wound James Haskell up sufficiently that at one point the Wasps man lost it completely.
After the pair of them had been separated following an intense one-on-one ‘death-struggle’ on the floor with the ball miles away, Haskell then suddenly went back for ‘afters’ and attempted to throttle Marler with intent, right in front of the main stand … and, as the commentator put it, also received “ten minutes on the naughty step” for his pains.
The heartening aspect of this game for Quins fans – apart from the unexpected happy result – was that it sprang from a genuine all-round ‘circle the waggons’ team effort. Gold stars may be due to new skipper and former Aussie international captain lock James Horwill, Chris Robshaw, Danny Care and Marland Yarde but not a man in the squad gave less than everything to the cause.
My only slight gripe is the amount of media attention being given to Quins’ kid fly half Marcus Smith, aged 18, who left his school Brighton College only in July.
He may be on Eddie Jones’ radar already (he’s attended one England training camp) and Quins’ youngest-ever Premiership player, but he’s just a child.
Being talked up like he is at the moment – he was awarded ‘Man of the Match’ yesterday – is a case of far ‘too much, too early’, in my honest and humble view.
