First Victory of the Season for the 4XV at Antrim
The 4’s made the short trip to Antrim to play a robust and well organised Antrim team who were unbeaten in their league campaign to date. Despite the inclement weather the Antrim pitch was in great condition (compliments to the Antrim grounds staff) and it provided a platform at times for some quality running rugby from both teams however it was the forward battle that dominated most of the game. A bright start from the Quins pack followed by some direct running and good line breaks from McC put Quins into the Antrim 22 after 7 minutes and, although outnumbered, Scotty put in a deft chip which was pounced on by Tim hurtling in from full back to score the first try. Scotty duly converted to take the score to 0-7. The next fifteen minutes was a hard fought forwards contest with the Quins front five driving very well in scrums winning several against the head and the back row making good ground with ball in hand and tackling consistently in defence.
An indiscretion from Antrim at the ruck on 25 minutes gave Scotty a pretty easy opportunity increase the lead to 0-10 but almost from the restart a galvanised Antrim ran well into the heart of the Quins defence and while some excellent defending from McC, Gareth, Tim and the back row held them out, a mix-up at the back of a Quins line out gave them a pretty soft score. With the conversion missed the score read 5-10. Undeterred by the mistake, Quins forwards strung a series of quality rucks together and with McC, Tim, AJ and the veteran Henderson (46) running some great lines, Antrim were once again caught off-side with Scotty converting the penalty to make it 5-13. This settled Quins and they started to play with a level of composure than has rarely been seen by this reporter. The forwards battled hard to win several scrums in the Antrim half and just on half-time, a break by Henderson led to a ruck close to the Antrim line, Mark Scott dummied the Antrim centres to go under the posts untouched and converted his own try to leave the half-time score 5-20. The second period was evenly contested with neither side able to add to their points tally for half an hour but credit must be given to the Quins forwards who put their counterparts under severe pressure at the scrum and rucked with a determination that has been evident in the last few weeks of training. Time and time again the Antrim team were repelled by heroic tackling by the entire side and the determination to win was summed up by the way they were kept out after being camped in the Quins 22 for 5 minutes. It was perhaps fitting for the oldest player on both teams to have the final word given the amount of work he did all day and in the dying minutes Henderson swooped onto a loose ball in the Antrim 22 and “hurtled” towards the line (without his zimmer) virtually in slow motion. In later years the try will, no doubt, have been scored from 70 metres out but his wee face was a picture when he eventually touched down under the posts and with Scotty adding the kick the final score was 5-27. In summation it was an excellent display from the forwards who battled ferociously all day and they were ably supported by a back line eager to run at every available opportunity. There were glimpses of quality but the important thing was that the team played with a belief and a level of control that was missing last season. Next week we host Carrick 4s at Deramore and with limited parking availability supporters are advised to come early to avoid disappointment.
Portadown 3 34 – 0 B. Harlequins 3
Score line flattered the strong Portadown 3s team who may have benefitted from their 2s not playing.
A new look Quins 3s took the pitch with a substantial number of changes due to many of the usual 3s players being unavailable.
Quins took the decision to receive the kick and play up hill in the first half. After approximately five minutes Portadown took the lead as a result of a kick over the heads of the Quins players a very unlucky bounce which was not expected by a scrambling Quins defence, resulting in a lucky touch down by Portadown.
For the remainder of the first half there were many periods of good play by both teams and a large number of mistakes mostly as a result of it being a wet day and the ball being like a bar of soap. The match was a physical encounter with Wayne Storey receiving a blow to the head resulting in him being dazed, and unsure of both where he was & what the score was (just a normal Saturday for Storey I hear you say!). Jody Wylie took charge of the Quins team as Wayne was clearly not right.
Within the first few minutes of the second half a takle by Conor El Saibi on the Quins try line, with no thought of self preservation he hit a Portadown player colliding with the posts and his head gear was not enough to prevent him receiving such a blow to the head that he had to leave the pitch. The reshuffle as a result of Conor leaving the pitch put Batman to 10 and Storey to inside centre. The loss of Conor and the reshuffle unfortunately resulted in limited attacking possibilities remaining from the Quins backline who had started the match with Lewis & Harry both back row players stepping up to do a job on the wings.
The second half continued in the same vein as the first with one extremely lucky try for Portadown along with a two well worked trys.
There was a great deal of positives to come from this match:-
The front row – Great to see Dave Thompson with the boots on again, a great first match by Elliot Vollands and excellent darts by Ben Snowden in the lineouts. The front row were extremely solid in all scrums, they got around the park and rucked well doing the basics well. The Second Row – Jody & Ritchie scrummaged well and were awesome in the lineouts with Jody lifting well & Ritchie taking his own balls & ocassionally stealing the oppositions. The back row – The ‘Wild Man’ Charlie was like a salmon in the lineouts regularly coming down with snow on his head, Storey gathering a trademark kickoff and with many hard probing runs by Johnny Carey at 8, the back row all covered many miles throughout the match regularly putting their bodies on the line and all putting their heads where sensible players would not have put their hands. Turk as ever, was solid at 9 with his torpeado like pass, his niggle of the opposition scrum half and him regularly stealing yards around rucks. Conor was excellent at 10 (not his usual position)with several effective ‘show and goes’, solid in defence and taking great control of the backline until his unfortunate early departure from the pitch. The two wingers Harry & Lewis unfortunatly saw little of the ball in attacking play but regularly came off their wings to help when possible, both were solid in defence & did extremely well playing out of position. The centres Matt and Batman was also a new combination to the Quins 3s and Matt did extremely well for his first match. Both Batman & Matt tackled their ‘socks off’ throughout the match and both will be sore today due to the significant difference in size between them and their opposite numbers. At 15 Gibbo was once again awesome, safe under the high ball, relishing having the ball in hand and making attacking runs typically taking two or three of the opposition to drag him down.
Lastly it is important to mention the great management support from Cabbage who gave many great words of wisdom at stoppages & it meant a lot to the team to have him there.
In summary the score line flattered the strong Portadown 3s team who may have benefitted from their 2s not playing. Quins battled well with every player having left noting in the changing room. It is essential that the entire team make it on Thursday for training (on the pitch for 7.00pm & team run before next weeks match against Bangor. With the great numbers at training team selection is becoming difficult if players are not there.
