Quins win but I didn’t see any of it
Sunday 12th November 2017: Anglo-Welsh Cup, Round 2: Pool 2: Harlequins v Worcester Warriors at the Stoop, kick off 3.00pm: Result: Harlequins 45 Worcester Warriors 37. League standings – Pool 2 Harlequins now second on 10 points, Pool 3 Worcester Warriors now second on 2 points.
Let me tell you a story.
I knew this game was on – I double-checked it in the morning Sunday newspapers – but for some reason I assumed it was taking place at Sixways (the Warriors home ground).
It wasn’t going to be broadcast live on the telly, so the only way of following the match was going to be either going to the Quins fans’ website Come All Within, to monitor its ‘Match Thread’, or else find an internet feed to a BBC local radio station.
If I was going to to monitor it at all, that is … which to be honest I wasn’t too bothered about anyway, after all it was only the Anglo-Welsh Cup.
I thus went about my Sunday as I normally do, reading The Rugby Paper and the Sunday newspapers, having the Andrew Marr Show playing – and then other stuff – on the TV in the background. Subsequently I consumed a very acceptable lunch of homemade steak & ale pie with chorizo …. plus cabbage and mash … prepared by She Who Must Be Obeyed who had spotted the recipe (by Marcus Wareing) in a newspaper ten days ago and was giving it a try.
This was served at about 1.45pm. After finishing it – and a second helping – I then had a Pavlova’s reaction of an overpowering desire to sleep, so I went to bed.
Waking at 3.30pm, I got dressed read to go to the gym and then on a whim came to the computer to see if I could find a BBC local radio feed giving live coverage of the match.
Eventually I discovered that BBC Radio Worcester was undertaking the honours, with popular former Quins back row forward Tom Guest acting as fellow pundit [Guest was a Quins academy member who played for the first team between 2005 and 2014 – and once played for the England Saxons (second team) – before leaving for London Irish and is now retired].
As I tuned in I learned that it was half-time at the Stoop, not Sixways at all, and that the score was 19-15 to Quins.
From what Guest was telling the listeners, Quins scrum had been totally dominant and – unless Worcester sorted that issue – they had scant chance of getting back in the game.
And that’s all I can tell you. Instead of staying with the live radio feed for the second half, I’m afraid I opted to undertake my Sunday afternoon visit to the gymnasium.
Apparently, according to media reports, the Quins victory (by 45-37) was a 13-try thriller with vibrant action at both ends and neither side showing anything to speak of in defence.
When you add the fact that a couple of weeks back Quins entertained the Warriors at the Stoop in the Premiership and won that one 41-35, it seems that every time these two teams get together the entertainment value is high but then so also so must be the frustration factor among the onlooking fans of both clubs at the total inability of either side to exert any control on proceedings.
