Stooping or Conquering? - Quins v Saints Preview

By Mark H
September 9 2004

Five points. Four tries. A huge amount of confidence. One cheesed off Aussie coach, and a whining Welsh captain. Top spot in the Zurich Premiership.

There were many benefits from last Saturday’s exhilarating win over Bath, not least those mentioned, but for them to be of any great worth, the bigger test comes this Saturday at the Stoop.

The early season pacesetters (can you be classed as early season pacesetters after one game? Oh well, who cares!) travel down to play a Harlequins side coming off the back of a disappointing opening day reverse to London Irish (in what was, apparently, a dire clash), and with memories of last season possibly being clouded by visions of this, if many more results turn out like those at Twickenham.

Saints have only lost twice at the Stoop in the Premiership, so why is it I only tend to remember the defeats to Quins over the years rather than the victories? The 1991 Pilkington Cup final; the game three days after the Wasps Heineken quarter final in 2000 that pretty much ended any title chances; the Tetley Bitter Cup quarter final the following season, when a home semi against Leicester went begging; and that beating, hammering, humiliation last season a week after the Gloucester epic. There have been wins too, Mark Tucker’s 87th minute try earning a bonus point two seasons ago being the most recent, but it’s the defeats that hurt. And hurt bad.

That 43-21 reverse looks, on paper, to have not been too bad, but coming a week after the effort against Gloucester probably just made it worse. 28-0 down against the wind just before the break, the try scored then gave us just a smidgen of hope. To then concede the next fifteen points at the start of the second half just made the whole afternoon soul destroying.

The catalyst of that defeat, Paul Burke, is now at Munster, but Andy Dunne has taken over the fly half role with possibly an even better boot on him. There is pace abundant in their back three in Gavin Duffy, Ugo Monye and the surprise package of last season, Simon Keogh, whilst Will Greenwood will be trying to prove that he deserves a recall to the new order that is English rugby after his summer off. At scrum half, Steve So’oialo makes his home debut after joining from Orrell in the summer and showing his worth in the three tests played by the Pacific Islanders.

In the pack, change abounds. Gone are the retired Jason Leonard and Bill Davison, but possibly more of a shock to Quins supporters is the absence of Tony Diprose. Before last weekend, he’d missed three games in the last seven seasons with Sarries and Quins, but a dislocated thumb kept him out of the Irish game and means that he only starts among the replacements this time around. Andre Vos moves from open side to number eight to displace Kai Horstmann, which gives a significant start to Luke Sherriff. Sherriff was the undoubted star of the ‘A’ league final victory over the Wanderers last season, and Mark Evans appears to be looking to his pace and mobility to make an impact opposite AB this weekend. The team:-

15 Gavin Duffy
14 Ugo Monye
13 Will Greenwood
12 Mel Deane
11 Simon Keogh
10 Andy Dunne
9 Steve So’oialo
1 Mike Worsley
2 James Hayter
3 Jon Dawson
4 Karl Rudzki
5 Simon Miall
6 Maama Molitika
7 Luke Sherriff
8 Andre Vos (captain)

16 Ace Tiatia
17 Ceri Jones
18 Roy Winters
19 Kai Horstmann
20 Tony Diprose
21 Jeremy Staunton
22 George Harder

Saints go in on the back of that great win last week, and most importantly, with a fully fit squad. There’s only one change which was pretty much expected, Ben Cohen coming in after his enforced first half absence last weekend for Wylie Human, with Human dropping to the bench. Other than that, it’s the same 22 that put the side on the top of the league. The team:-

15 Bruce Reihana
14 John Rudd
13 Mark Tucker
12 Marc Stcherbina
11 Ben Cohen
10 Paul Grayson
9 Mark Robinson
1 Tom Smith
2 Steve Thompson
3 Robbie Kempson
4 Selborne Boome
5 Damien Browne
6 Andrew Blowers
7 Corne Krige (captain)
8 Grant Seely

16 Dan Richmond
17 Robbie Morris
18 Matt Lord
19 Darren Fox
20 Johnny Howard
21 Shane Drahm
22 Wylie Human

What can we expect? Well, Smurf’s writing the report so that’s a bad omen to start with! As I said earlier, it’s a test; a chance to find out more about the character of an Alan Solomons squad and more about Corne Krige’s undoubted qualities as captain. I just think that the prize and the pride may be too great, but a word of warning - we thought that about Bath in the second game last year and got turned over.

Saints to win by eight or nine.