Quins Vs Tigers
My return to the stoop didn’t disappoint with the visit of Leicester Tigers.
Both teams were coming off the back of good wins the previous weekend with Leicester beating Gloucester and Quins breaking wasps unbeaten record at the Ricoh.
The match had the makings of a titanic tussle with the battle of the English scrum half’s Care and Young’s, battle of the English Wingers Yarde and May and a battle of the English fly half’s, Ford who currently holds the 10 jersey and Marcus Smith who is showing all the attributes of one day wearing it; remarkably only a year ago, Smith as a Brighton College student had a kicking session with George Ford who described Smith as a “hell of a talent” – 12 months on they lined up on opposite teams.
Quins started on the front foot, going through the phases before both teams exchanged penalties. Leicester were the first team to score a try courtesy of the impressive Telusa Veainu, Ford missing the resulting conversion. Harlequins then took the lead through Smiths boot; Two straightforward penalties. The Tigers however had a slight lead, 11-9 going in at the break.
Second Half
The game ignited shortly after the break buy the hosts with 2 tries in 2 minutes; The first a trademark tap and go by England scrum half Danny Care, The 2nd a result of a mistake by Veainu which ended up with Luamanu bulldozing over the line; Leicester now trailing 21-11.
The turning point in the second half was the yellow cards to Genge and Collier for persistent scrum infringements on 51 minutes which opened up the game! Jonny May was the first to capitalise with the extra space touching down for 5 points before prop Greg Bateman Waltzed through the Quins defence to put the tigers into the lead.
Quins the responded with a converted try from Alofa Alofa which gave the hosts the slight lead however tigers then re-took the lead with two penalties from the boot of ford – 28-31
The tigers went in search for the bonus point try but did not find it while Quins struggled to get back up the other end to find the match winning points.
Final Score Harlequins 28 – 31 Leicester Tigers
In summary a game that had everything and while on the way home thinking about the game, i couldn’t be angry or disappointed with the loss as the team gave everything, even when momentum took a hit with injuries to Charlie Walker, Chris Robshaw and Mike Brown. It really was a battle of two great teams and the result could’ve gone either way!
Next up is Sale sharks on Friday 6th October – A blog post will follow shortly after that game.
