Rugby

Please pardon my ‘doubting Thomas’ moment …

[The Stoop, Saturday 9th January 2015: Aviva Premiership Round 9: Harlequins 29 Saracens 23.] As I type this I’m trying to think of comparable days in my life to match yesterday – perhaps the birth of my kids; my two wedding days; my last day at school on which I captained my house to a win in [...]

January 10, 2016 // 0 Comments

Fingers crossed …

This is the Big One. Round 9 of the Aviva Premiership and we are hosting Saracens at a sold-out Stoop this afternoon. I love the atmosphere that gradually builds up all week before one of these crunch games and, with Sarries the runaway league leaders (unbeaten in all competitions so far this term) [...]

January 9, 2016 // 0 Comments

A job half done

The weather (specifically strong winds and lashing rain) affected most UK sporting fixtures over the weekend and yesterday’s Harlequins 24-20 away victory over Worcester Warriors, taking them above Leicester Tigers to third in the Premiership, was no exception. [As your Quins correspondent, with [...]

January 4, 2016 // 0 Comments

Resuming normal service

Monday 28th December 2015, The Stoop, kick-off 1500 hours: Harlequins ‘A’ 34 London Irish ‘A’ 7. New festive day, Bank Holiday Monday, new Quins rugby game. And after the on and off-pitch excesses of Big Game 8, also some time for reflection. Fans are wonderful specimens and come in various [...]

December 29, 2015 // 0 Comments

Ding-dong madness in south-west London

Aviva Premiership Round 7 – Twickenham Stadium, Sunday 27th December 2015 – Harlequins 39 Gloucester 39 [3 league points each: 2 for the draw, 1 each for scoring 4 tries]. Today – whilst leaving Rust readers who have either watched the game live on BT Sport and/or who read newspaper reports [...]

December 28, 2015 // 0 Comments

You cain’t always git what you want

Monday 21st December: Harlequins ‘A’ 20 Bath United 16. Introduction: (1) an apology: because of my rather tenuous relationship with technical competence, I discovered overnight that I must have inadvertently pressed some unknown button on my bog-standard digital camera. As a result, all the [...]

December 22, 2015 // 0 Comments

Another game of two halves

The Stoop, Saturday 19th December: Harlequins 59 Calvisano 7 (European Challenge Cup). Rugby Calvisano S.R.L. is a professional rugby club hailing from the province of Brescia in Lombary which currently operates in Italy’s National Championship of Excellence and managed to qualify to play in this [...]

December 20, 2015 // 0 Comments

Do you know what it is yet, Mr Jones …?

Like many England rugby fans, I am waiting on tenterhooks to find out exactly how new head coach Eddie Jones eventually sets up his chosen coaching team and in particular just what he is going to do – or even ‘what he is going to be allowed to do’ by the crazy agreement in place between the [...]

December 17, 2015 // 0 Comments

First things first, please …

Never mind the war upon ISIS or the fact of 195 countries signing an accord in Paris regarding action to be taken in respect of climate change in order to avoid the extinction of the human race by the year 2100 AD, there are far more important priorities to be dealt with and I cannot understand why [...]

December 13, 2015 // 0 Comments

Canter in the wind

Saturday 5th December 2015 – The Stoop – Harlequins 38 London Irish 7. Make no mistake about it, this was a Grade A Premiership rout played out in front of RFU CEO Ian Ritchie and new England head coach Eddie Jones sitting in the stands. The Australian will have liked what he saw as regards the [...]

December 6, 2015 // 0 Comments