LV= Cup- Quins vs Welsh at the Stoop

From Quins website

Wallace continues as Harlequins captain in LV= CupHarlequins have announced the team that will face London Welsh in round three of the LV= Cup at the Stoop tomorrow, kick-off 3.00pm.With ten players away on international duty, Harlequins have blended youth and experience to face the Exiles for the second time this month. Ollie Lindsay-Hague, who was one of five young players to commit their future to the club this week, starts at full-back while Ben Botica and Karl Dickson partner at half-backs.

In the forwards, Dave Ward starts at hooker, with Charlie Matthews and Sam Twomey completing the front five.

Luke Wallace, who has been shortlisted for this season's "LV= breakthrough player of the year award", captains the side and is joined in the back-row with Tom Guest and Joe Trayfoot.

Among the replacements, Harry Allen will look to make his first appearance for the club, while Ross Chisholm is named after recovering from an ankle injury sustained against Leicester Tigers in September.

Harlequins Team

15. Ollie Lindsay-Hague
14. Seb Stegmann
13. Matt Hopper
12. Tom Casson
11. Sam Smith
10. Ben Botica
9. Karl Dickson

1. Mark Lambert
2. Dave Ward
3. Will Collier
4. Sam Twomey
5. Charlie Matthews
6. Joe Trayfoot
7. Luke Wallace (C)
8. Tom Guest

16. Harry Allen
17. Darryl Marfo
18. Kyle Sinckler
19. Jack Clifford
20. Harry Sloan
21. Jordan Burns
22. Louis Grimoldby
23. Ross Chisholm

Ross, 34, who won 25 caps for Scotland, is in his fourth season at the Exiles and has been in tremendous form, having played a pivotal role in helping the club to Championship success last year.
Ross joined Welsh from Saracens in 2009 and has so far amassed 525 points for the club, including scoring two tries.

Ross is one of nine changes made by head coach Lyn Jones to the side beaten 39-17 by Stade Francais in Valenciennes last weekend in the Amlin Challenge Cup.

Tom Voyce and Sonny Parker also come into the backs, while in the forwards Paulica Ion starts at tight head and Tom Bristow at loosehead. Elsewhere in the pack, Kirill Kulemin, Ed Jackson and Adam Balding return to the side, while Michael Hills, a first half replacement against Stade, continues in the number seven jersey.

On the bench, there's a welcome return from injury for Martin Purdy and Daniel Browne, while there's also a place for Neath scrum half Luc Jones - son of London Welsh head coach Lyn - who joins the club on loan.

"One hundred appearances for any club is a huge achievement and honour, and Gordon fully deserves this accolade with London Welsh," said head coach Jones.

"He's been a model professional and looked after himself and his game, and in turn he's looked after London Welsh for the last few years.

"For us to be competitive moving into the final third of the season having a fit and full squad is important and we welcome back Martin Purdy and Daniel Browne.

"We've known for while that we're going to have players ineligible, as well as unavailable through injury, for the LV= Cup so Neath have been good enough to loan Luc to us.

"Playing in Europe was hugely positive, especially for the boys for whom it was their first experience of playing against such high profile sides as Stade Francais and Grenoble.

"We now have the pleasure of playing the European Cup favourites on Saturday. Players need to be able to learn and improve and we we're delighted to be coming down to the Stoop for a third time this season.

"We always get a warm welcome from the home support, who appreciate good rugby, and we hope we can be competitive and to start off where we left off at the Kassam against Harlequins a few weeks back."

London Welsh: 15. Tom Voyce*, 14. Nick Scott, 13. Sonny Parker*, 12. Seb Jewell, 11. Phil MacKenzie*, 10. Gordon Ross*, 9. Alex Davies, 1. Tom Bristow, 2. Dan George, 3. Paulica Ion*, 4. Adam Brown, 5. Kirill Kulemin*, 6. Ed Jackson (c), 7. Michael Hills, 8. Adam Balding.

Replacements: 16. Gareth Evans, 17. Billy Moss, 18. James Tideswell, 19. Martin Purdy, 20. Daniel Browne, 21. Luc Jones, 22. Joe Ajuwa, 23. Tom Arscott.

Very young and exciting squad for Quins, good to see Ross back on the bench too!

Very nice squad, with a good blend of youth and experience with Guest and Dickson in there. Cracking to see Wallace entrusted with the captaincy once more.

Not heard of Twomey or Trayfoot. What are they like?

Lots of pace in the backline, and certainly has the potential to be pretty electric.

If Chisholm and Burns get on, it could be a ludicrously quick backline.

Can't take Welsh lightly, they didn't collapse at all in the Kassam in the AP, but it's clear now with a HEC QF confirmed and the SF after that a hard as it gets, COS is going to rotate a lot an rest Nev, Easter etc. Hope our strength in depth is good enough to keep the triple at least on the cards as long as possible!

Trayfoot is a promising blindside, won't make England but good enough to become a premiership starter. Don't know much about Twomey but I've heard good things.

Hope it's dry enough to throw the ball around but if not Dickson and Botica and Casson are perfectly capable of a kicking game. So is Ross though...

Also, I really like Lynn Jones, he comes across as a modest, respectful and determined man

Interested to see if Sinckler gets to prop. I don't want to throw him to quick, but potential monster material.

Id kinda like LW to win the cup and then just shut it down.

Whilst a long way from first choice its a stronger Quins side than I mightve expected from a club chasing on 3 fronts and contributing a fair few 6 nations/saxons players.

Indeed Peter, most of the starting line up have had a good amount of AP exposure now, and the bench must be going in feeling good after winning the 'A' league.

Quite looking forward to taking my seat for this one i have to say.

Really want to see Burns as an impact sub if possible- think he could be another great SH but different to Care or KD

Great to see Chisholm back!

Happy with all the other choices too Wallace in particular.

Really strong team chosen there and should be a great game, can't makeit unfortunately so good to see Sky deciding to show Sale's match instead

Glaws have effectively conceded the group to Quins and Exeter to battle it out over. Our side is very inexperienced against a pretty much full strength Saints side. Which means by the end of the weekend we'll be out of contention. As Quins play the Ospreys during the 6N, I'd expect you to qualify with 4 wins out of 4.

As I said earlier, it would be nice to have the treble on the cards as long as possible

I'll give you the LV, but unfortunately I can't see the HC and Jeff being anybody else's other than Clermont's and Glaws'

We'll get to the playoffs and get through Munster first before we start worrying about that HKC! If we can get to the SF, well, it's just another game albeit a hard one and I think we'll enjoy being underdogs but Munster must come first. As for the playoffs, who knows?

I was only jesting. To get to the final of the HC will be an incredibly tough ask considering the away semi, but I'd have you as firm favourites for the Jeff.

I think how the Jeff goes will depend on how well we do in the HEC! If we make the Final, that will be priority, and I'd actually back Sarries for the Jeff (and Clermont for the HEC). If COS gets us a triple, I will hail him as the greatest club coach of all time and pray to the rugby gods that he stays with us

I do agree the HC will influence the Jeff campaign. Could it be a Quins v Sarries double final like Wasps v Tiggers all those years ago...

ChequeredJersey wrote:I think how the Jeff goes will depend on how well we do in the HEC! If we make the Final, that will be priority, and I'd actually back Sarries for the Jeff (and Clermont for the HEC). If COS gets us a triple, I will hail him as the greatest club coach of all time and pray to the rugby gods that he stays with us

+1

Although I would prefer if Sarries didn't win the Jeff (sadly can see them doing it though).

If we won the triple i'd form a new religion based around the worship of COS.

OK so far, 10-6 to Quins

Hectic game, end-to-end

Nice to see LW back in their home of SW London... Big game for them too, this s a great way to target a place for Europe.

Luckily Bath are beating Exeter!

What's the score anyone? And is Chisholm on yet?

Despite the attacking nature of the game, errors and last ditch defence mean it is 16-6 to Quins at the moment. Not sure about Chisholm

16-6 to the Quins

Chrisolm came on about ten minutes ago for Stegman

Sale + ref beating the Scarlets 31-17 in the other game.

Morgannwg wrote:Sale + ref beating the Scarlets 31-17 in the other game.

Not wrong there

Should score with this

Looks like he's still on Maes. Which of the brothers is selected for the U20s? I get them mixed up.

SO MANY ERRORS

Sloppy game then? Is it raining there?

23-6 and that's the game

Morgannwg wrote:Looks like he's still on Maes. Which of the brothers is selected for the U20s? I get them mixed up.

Yep. I thought they took him off...

Yeah I think he is in the U20s, very good player. Gareth Owen played well too, and that young Albino lad at scrum half.

Im at the stoop but we have had the scarlets game on in the London Welsh box I managed to blag myself in to... Off to the LWRFC club house to watch the other game on S4C now...!

If the LW scrum half had been playing the game as much as he was trying to play the ref maybe LW would have been better. He got a few good yards off, but spent most of time looking like he was attempting semaphore communication at the ref.

Game didn't properly come alive until the second half, as much handling errors by Quins as anything else, but there were some good breaks from both sides. Ross maybe 34 but he doesn't miss a trick, can tell he's an ex-international.

Sinckler's going to be a monster when he matures, scrum was so much stronger when he was subbed in. He wants that shirt.

How old is Synckler now? I always think he's about 18 but he has to be at least 20 now! Not that that's particularly old though...

How was Wallace?

I think Sinckler's only 19, but I stand to be corrected. On one scrum he hit so hard it reminded me a lot of JJ when he gets a good hit in (hulk-smash), his loose play and carry was intense if not always completely successful. Obviously looking to play a running rugby forwards game.

Wallace made solid captaining choices, didn't go OTT and get himself carded (seen it before), and didn't take a backwards step. I don't think he's anywhere near Robshaw's standard at the moment, but he's pushing hard (made a few good runs and faster out the gate than Robshaw tbh); with the last few games he's putting his hand up for further down the line and making a good start at that out the gates.

It was obvious a fair few of the first XV were off on holiday/call up, but on the whole they beat a team that is turning out to be more than a 1-year in the prem side. We're going the right way for years down the line I'd say.

As I've said elsewhere, there wasn't a single first team starter in our lineup, TH result was great

LW lost it as much as we won it CJ. There's no denying they made a fair few breaks, and piled the pressure on, but most breakdown's that didn't go their way they were appealing to the ref (semaphore anyone?) as opposed to getting their heads down. Kingston & Co. have obviously drilled that hard into them and it'll take them far. IIRC O'Shea said they tried to take the ref out of the game as much as possible, and it showed. Handling needs to get better though, it was a bit greasy out there but there were some head in hands dropping moments.

If LW get over that and just dig in they'll stay up for sure. They already look a lot better than they did that first game of the season.

I think they will stay up and I think they deserve to as well.

I think it's def between LI and Sale. Interesting that they both put in good performances this weekend and got the wins they needed. Could be close between them both I guess to see who drops.

I've seen Synckler in the gym a few times and he is massive, reminds me a lot of JJ, Marfo is another who's part troll (no offense Daryl!) but seems to love our style of rugby going by the number of tries he scores in the A league.

CJ wouldn't you say that Casson and Hopper were both now first team starters?

yappysnap wrote:I think it's def between LI and Sale. Interesting that they both put in good performances this weekend and got the wins they needed. Could be close between them both I guess to see who drops.

I've seen Synckler in the gym a few times and he is massive, reminds me a lot of JJ, Marfo is another who's part troll (no offense Daryl!) but seems to love our style of rugby going by the number of tries he scores in the A league.

CJ wouldn't you say that Casson and Hopper were both now first team starters?

Nope. When the going got tough (I.e. Biarritz away), COS reverted to JTH and Lowe. Which said, I think Casson us pushing JTH very hard. The fans like Hopper, but when both are fully fit, COS has consistently picked Lowe.

So is that 22 out of the 23 EQed, with the 23rd just a matter of time?

Hadn't thought of that but yes it is, not sure if that's the same as most other clubs in the comp or not but either way its impressive, especially when you add to that list a fair few youngsters who didn't make the team.