Heineken Cup Report: Harlequins 25-17 Connacht

With their eleventh successive win in all competitions, Harlequins started their Heineken Cup campaign with a close victory over Connacht at The Stoop last night. Twenty points from the boot of Nick Evans and a try from Karl Dickson saw Quins emerge, with a collective sigh of relief at a narrow escape, to win by 25 – 17.

In what turned out to be a tense and exciting encounter, Connacht threw everything they could into their debut in this competition and made Harlequins work hard to gain their victory. With the early exchanges showing the intent of both sides, an early penalty from Evans was soon equalled by Nikora.  Immediately Connacht went offside and Evans restored the lead to 6- 3 after eight minutes.

Connacht continued to attack and when Robshaw was tripped by a blocker off the ball a gap opened for the Connacht runners to score the simplest of tries duly converted by Nikora to establish a lead of 6 – 10 in the first thirteen minutes. Another Evans penalty reduced that lead to a single point shortly afterwards and might have reversed it had he not had a rare miss from the half-way line.

The visitors continued to make life difficult for Quins and kept play close to the home twenty-two.  Then Quins took themselves in hand and with a series of drives and carries from the forwards with Marler prominent took play to the Connacht line.  Inevitably a gap appeared and Karl Dickson dived through for a try which Evans duly converted to restore Quins’ lead to 16 – 10.  A further penalty from Evans increased the lead to 19 – 10 at half time.

Injuries necessitated the replacement of Olly Kohn with Tomas Vallejos after only a quarter of an hour of the first half and before it ended an ankle injury to Lowe saw him replaced by Urdapilleta.  The latter was soon in the thick of the action in the early part of the second half and was soon showing that he is a very good player. Marler had a try disallowed for obstruction eight minutes into the half and Connacht failed to add to their score from a penalty soon after.

The vistors continued to cause problems for Harlequins and as the third quarter ended a wide pass out to the left found former Quin, Gavin Duffy at speed along the touchline to score the visitors’ second try and reduce the score to 19 – 17.

 With the game reduced to a single score, these were jittery times for Quins.  They continued to attack, however, and Sam Smith might have had a try from a kick through that he chased but the video referee ruled otherwise. But two penalties successfully kicked by Nick Evans put the matter beyond doubt and deprived Connacht of a losing bonus point.

Speaking after the match, Conor O’Shea praised the visitors saying “This Connacht team will give nothing to anyone in the Heineken Cup,  "They came at us absolutely full metal jacket but we knew what was coming. Nobody in our dressing room is arrogant enough to believe you get things for free. But we had the fortitude to come through and found a way to win. Connacht played really good rugby in the second half but, mentally, our guys are very strong."

There was praise too for Nick Evans: "His game management was outstanding. Defensively he's got better and his kicking percentages have gone up."  Asked about the injuries he said,  "Lowe hurt his ankle and Kohn had a nasty bicep injury. They could both be out for a while,"

Harlequins Brown; Stegmann, Lowe (Urdapilleta, 32), Turner-Hall, Smith; Evans, Dickson (Care, 49); Marler, Brooker (Gray, 58), Johnston, Kohn (Vallejos, 14), Robson, Fa'asavalu (Wallace, 71), Robshaw (capt), Easter.

Try Dickson Con Evans Pens Evans 6.

Connacht Duffy (capt); Tuohy, Griffin, McSharry (Fa'afili, 68), O'Halloran; Nikora (O'Connor, 48), O'Donohoe (Murphy, 54); Wilkinson, Flavin (Reynecke, 54), Ah You (Rogers, 54), Swift, McCarthy, Muldoon, Ofisa (Anderson, 27), Naoupu.

Tries O'Halloran, Duffy Cons Nikora, O'Connor Pen Nikora.

Referee J Garces (France) Attendance 11,866.