One way of passing an afternoon I suppose
Saturday 7th January 2017: Aviva Premiership Round 13: Harlequins v Sale Sharks at the Stoop, kick-off 1500 hours: Result – Harlequins 29 Sale Sharks 26. Harlequins now 7th in the league table on 32 points, level with Leicester Tigers who have a game in hand, and 6 points behind Bath Rugby in 4th (last play-off) position on 38 points.
With my apologies in advance for what I suspect is going to be another in a long line of hangdog moans, but you have to tell it like it is. Today at least I have decided to try and put a brave face on things by beginning with an attempted ‘upbeat’ view before moving on to how I really feel.
REPORT (1) – GLASS-HALF FULL VERSION:
Quins remain undefeated at home this season after hanging on to take this victory and 4 league points. Given the overall first team squad injury list and those new injuries we picked up in this one, you could argue let’s take the four points and be grateful for them. Any win is a win.
The story of this one was that our England loose-head Joe Marler did something to himself in the pre-match warm-up and so was replaced in the starting XV by the Welshman Owen Evans.
This required that the club’s talismatic and favourite adopted ‘man from the Principality’ Adam Jones (36 in March), previously taking the forward’s warm-up in his coaching capacity, having to retire to put on his shorts and raise what passed for a jog towards to the North Stand end – to a huge ovation from the crowd – in preparation for joining the bench.
Six minutes into the match, our just-back-from-long-term-injury Number One fly half Nick Evans was badly clattered by a borderline ‘no arms’ tackle and went off for a HIA (head injury assessment) never to return, being replaced by Tim Swiel who proceeded to have an excellent game (scoring a try amidst his overall 24 point contribution to Quins’ total of 29).
Shortly afterwards both first tight head prop Will Collier (suspected broken ankle) and then the aforementioned Owen Evans also had to be substituted and on came our England tight head Kyle Sinckler and Mr Jones himself (95 caps for Wales, 5 for the British & Irish Lions).
With Swiel on at fly-half and no props left on the bench we were down to the bare bones.
Sale Sharks are sinking dangerously close to the relegation zone and, now that Bristol has woken up and finally won a couple of games, we could be about to witness a Sale-Worcester-Bristol dog-fight to the death all the way to May. They certainly hadn’t come to lie down. Their pack was big and ugly. Their backs were also big and ugly. They were robust and uncompromising all over the park.
You might have expected the ‘unbeaten at home’ Quins to come out of the blocks at high speed and dominate. Not so. It was a 50:50 match all the way and in fact on the run of play over the first 30 minutes – by which time they were 13-6 up, having scored a converted try – an impartial observer could have been forgiven for identifying Sale as the team defending an unbeaten home record.
At this point the Harlequins somehow gained a foothold and took advantage, scoring converted tries of their own through Charlie Walker and Swiel (who in broken play collected the ball and outpaced Sale’s defence from 60 metres out) to reach the break, to general amazement amongst those around where I was sitting, 20-13 to the good.
By the end, Quins were desperately holding out under a full-on Sale siege. At 23-13 early in the second half we had looked out of sight but then Sale scored two tries (one converted) to get within striking distance with 10 minutes still to the final whistle. Squeaky bum time.
REPORT (2) – GLASS HALF EMPTY VERSION:
Tim Swiel ‘flies’ in for his try
I know it’s become as predictable as a ‘stuck record’ in this column, but watching Quins this term is about as dispiriting an experience as I can ever remember it being.
On paper we have a decent squad with a sprinkling of real star names and yet – in comparison with our days of yore (2010 to 2013) – our play is unrecognisable.
The key headline is ‘A Complete Absence Of Joie De Vivre’.
No midfield penetration whatsoever, no midfield playmaker dictating the course of the match, no confidence, no constant threat of building momentum.
And certainly no sense at all of ‘wherever we are on the pitch, whatever pressure we’re under, Quins are going to let loose at any moment, bewilder the opposition with their inter-passing and backing up, and run in an exhilarating, almost unbelievable, wonderful, energising try that will render both sets of supporters spellbound with its audacity’.
The fact is that – whatever excuses anyone can offer (injuries, law changes, bad luck, just not getting the ‘rub of the green’ – do please add here any of your own choosing) – the 2016/2017 Quins team is but a shadow of that which won the Premiership in 2012.
At home or away, it feels as if they are ‘just going through the motions’. Okay yes, they’re probably working as hard as ever on the training field, and good intentions no doubt abound within both the squad and coaching staff, but the truth is we’re nailed-on also-rans – just another mediocre team way below top four (play-off) standard.
In which context the Quins PA announcer’s patter – which includes welcoming everyone to the home fortress that is the Stoop, frequently referring to this season’s unbeaten home record and to the home crowd as the ‘16th man’, plus regularly urging us to ‘get behind the team’ – continues to grate on your author’s nerves. I acknowledge, of course, that this is what he’s employed to do, that’s the script he’s been given, and someone has got to be given the short straw and attempt to act as a rabble-rouser if he can.
But (my point is) – however anyone might try to orchestrate it – the crowd atmosphere at any sporting ground takes its cue entirely from what is happening on the pitch. Primarily, of course, irrespective of whether you’re talking club or country supporters, the key requirement is winning.
Winning – and if possible with some sense of style and sense of innate superiority over the opposition – but, above all, bottom line, winning. End of message.
Win by boring the opposition into the ground if necessary. Crush them. If it suits, time-waste. Get your forwards roughing up theirs, celebrate any outbreaks of ‘handbags’ (it shows they care). Put their pack in their place – i.e. subdued and beaten. Concede no points at all. Squeeze the life out of them. All that matters is the winning.
We don’t get much of that watching Quins these days. I blame the Club generally for this. The senior management because of their consistent lack of vision and poor executive decisions, in the latter of which I’d include their choice of current coaching staff.
Nothing but the best.
That should be Quins’ watchword, from top to bottom in the club. It isn’t. I don’t blame John Kingston (the new Director of Rugby, who’s been around for 15 years or more) and his men – they’ve been offered jobs and are doing them to the best of their ability. But they aren’t good enough.
What someone at the top of the club needs to realise is that fancy jargon-filled marketing-speak words about big visions for the future are all very well in their place but they mean practically nothing when – out on the pitch – the guys are playing like (very average) clueless headless chickens.
The ‘Six Nations window’ is fast approaching. On the evidence so far this season, watching the rest of Quins’ 2016/2017 season is going to be a Grade A ordeal. Adrian Stoop would be turning in his grave if he could see what was happening during what was supposed to the club’s 150th glorious anniversary season but what has turned out to be another case of what we’ve recently had to become accustomed to, viz. the ‘same old sub-standard rubbish’.