Harlequins 2013/14 Season Discussion Thread

[yappysnap]

First topic message reminder :

So a few other teams had their own threads last season, it seemed to work well and seeing as it's far easier to steal someone else's idea then think up your own...

WELCOME TO THE HARLEQUINS 2013/14 SEASON DISCUSSION THREAD!

The Squad for 13/14:
Director of Rugby Conor O'Shea
Head Coach John Kingston
First Team Coach Tony Diprose
Assistant First Team Coach Mark Mapletoft
Assistant First Team Coach Collin Osborne

Hooker
Joe Gray
Rob Buchanan
Dave Ward

Loosehead Prop:
Joe Marler
Mark Lambert
Nick Mayhew
Daryl Marfo

Tighthead Prop
Paul Doran Jones
Will Collier
Kyle Sinckler  

Lock
George Robson   
Charlie Matthews
George Merrick
Sam Twomey  

Blindside
Maurie Fa'asavalu
Joe Trayfoot  

Openside
Chris Robshaw
Luke Wallace

Number 8
Nick Easter
Tom Guest
Jack Clifford

Scrum Half
Danny Care
Karl Dickson

Fly Half
Nick Evans  
Ben Botica
Louis Grimoldby

Inside Centre
Jordan Turner-Hall  
Tom Casson  
Harry Sloan

Outside Centre
George Lowe
Matt Hopper
Charlie Walker

Wing
Ugo Monye
Tom Williams
Sam Smith
Miles Mantella


Fullback
Mike Brown
Ross Chisholm
Ollie Lindsay-Hague

Fixtures:

Harlequins are pleased to confirm an exciting and challenging opening for the 2013-14 Aviva Premiership season.
 
The Londoners kick-off the new season against local rivals London Wasps at Twickenham Stadium during the London Double Header on 7th September, kick-off 4.30pm (Live on BT Sport).

2013 Aviva Premiership finalists, Northampton Saints are the visitors for the first home game at The Twickenham Stoop on Friday 13th September, kick-off 7:45pm (Live on BT Sport).

The second home game welcomes Heineken Cup semi-finalists Saracens on 28th September, kick-off 3.15pm (Live on BT Sport).

Exeter Chiefs will be the visitors to Twickenham Stadium for the sixth Big Game on Saturday 28th December. More information about Big Game 6 will be provided in coming months.

The Londoners will open their Heineken Cup campaign over the weekend of the 11th/12th/13th October, while the defence of the LV= Cup will begin during the second weekend of November. Fixture dates and times are expected by ERC and Premiership rugby later this month.

The only way to guarantee your place at all of the regular season home fixtures is by becoming a Member. Information on the innovative Membership scheme and how to become a Member is available by clicking here or by calling 0208 744 4477.

"There is no such thing as an easy match in the Aviva Premiership and there is no doubt that our opening fixtures are very demanding," said Conor O'Shea, Harlequins Director of Rugby.

"Once again we will be competing in three great competitions against top class opposition from this country and Europe. Our Premiership campaign gets underway with the London Double Header against Wasps on 7th September and is followed during that month with tough home matches with Northampton Saints and Saracens as well as a trip to Sixways to play against Dean Ryan's Worcester.

"Given the quality of the opposition, we hope that our supporters will be looking forward to returning to The Stoop to get behind their team as we set out on the marathon that is the Premiership with all its related ups and downs."

Tickets for the new season's home games will go on sale on Monday 15th July. Tickets can be purchased online or by calling 0208 410 6000
Harlequins Fixtures
Please note fixtures after Round 8 are subject to change

Round 1
Saturday September 7: London Wasps v Harlequins (4.30pm, Twickenham Stadium, BT Sport)

Round 2
Friday September 13:Harlequins v Northampton Saints (7.45pm BT Sport)

Round3
Friday September 21: Worcester Warriors v Harlequins (7.45pm BT Sport)

Round 4
Saturday September 28: Harlequins v Saracens (3.15pm BT Sport)

Round 5
Saturday October 5: London Irish v Harlequins (3.00pm)

Heineken Cup
Fri/Sat/Sun October 11/12/13 Heineken Cup

Fri/Sat/Sun October 18/19/20 Heineken Cup

Round 6
Saturday October 26: Harlequins v Sale Sharks (3.00pm)

Round 7
Saturday November 2: Leicester Tigers v Harlequins (5.30pm BT Sport)

LV= Cup
Fri/Sat/Sun November 9 LV= Cup

Fri/Sat/Sun November 16 LV= Cup

Round 8
Saturday November 23: Harlequins v Gloucester Rugby (3.00pm)

Round 9
Sunday December 1: Newcastle Falcons v Harlequins (3.00pm)

Heineken Cup
Fri/Sat/Sun Dec 6/7/8 Heineken Cup

Fri/Sat/Sun Dec 13/14/15Heineken Cup

Round 10
Saturday December 21st: Bath Rugby v Harlequins (3.00pm)

Round 11
Sat December 28: BIG GAME 6 Harlequins v Exeter Chiefs (3.00pm)

Round 12
Saturday January 4: Northampton Saints v Harlequins (3.00pm)

Heineken Cup
Fri/Sat/Sun January 10/11/12 Heineken Cup
Fri/Sat/ Sun January 17/18/19 Heineken Cup

LV= Cup
Fri/Sat/Sun Jan 24/25/26 LV= Cup
Fri/Sat/Sun Jan 31 Feb 1 /2 LV= Cup

Round 13
Saturday February 8: Harlequins v London Wasps (3.00pm)

Round 14
Saturday February 15: Harlequins v Newcastle Falcons (3.00pm)

Round 15
Saturday February 22: Gloucester Rugby v Harlequins (3.00pm)

Round 16
Saturday March 1: Harlequins v Worcester Warriors (3.00pm)

Round 17
Saturday March 22: Saracens v Harlequins (3.00pm)

Round 18
Saturday March 29: Harlequins v London Irish (3.00pm)

Round 19
Friday April 11: Sale Sharks v Harlequins (7.45pm)

Round 20
Saturday April 19: Harlequins v Leicester Tigers (3.00pm)

Round 21
Saturday May 3: Exeter Chiefs v Harlequins (3.00pm)

Round 22
Saturday May 10: Harlequins v Bath Rugby (3.00pm)

Whether you're a Quins fan or not please feel free to discuss, argue, banter and bicker below. And  to 2014's Aviva Prem Champs!!    

COYQ's!!!!

[quinsforever]

 

Excellent win from a very clinical Quins side.

[propdavid_london]

Was an entertaining win yesterday. I would have been happy coming away with a 1pt win let alone a bonus 5 pointer.
Newcastle for so long were a bit of a bogey team for Quins - that role seems to have been taken by Exeter over the last few seasons.

There is still plenty of room for improvement -
Excellent performances from Easter and Care. Solid from Nev and solid from Wallace. Tom Williams looked to be causing problems for defence and Ward got a well deserved MoM.
Sam Smith looks to have some confidence back too - taking his break away try very well.
The youngsters all coming off the bench looked hungry.

Scrum time is still an issue - Collier is a bit of a penalty machine at the moment (but like Johnston, perhaps he needs a season to really settle).
PDJ - back from injury still looks rubbish, and was luck not to get yellow card after 1 minute on field.
Casson and Hopper still need time together I guess - didn't quite click although improving. Is Molenar injured?

Brown - Hopefully he isn't injured badly - looked like a rib or something.

[ChequeredJersey]

Molenaar was concussed I think

[Geordie]

Fair play to Quins, you can only beat whats in front of you...but its just not difficult to beat us at the moment. We're appalling.

[Poorfour]

Hopper looked a bit out of sorts, but I thought Casson did some good things. His offload to Nev for the 3rd try (I think) was very slick.

I am not sure that Sir was entirely on top of the scrum. He pinged Marler for binding at one point, which always rings alarm bells for me because Joe has one of the tidiest binds around. That said, JK has often said that it takes a year for a front row to gel and both Collier and PDJ are new this year. Plus we've not had a proper 4 at any point yet this season. It may be that things settle down once Matthews is back to starting, as he looked very secure in the scrum last year.

Thought Guest's control at the base of the scrum was good except for the time he got scragged by the scrum half while trying to pass.

[propdavid_london]

Poorfour - I agree with you and JK on that, Collier should be given the benefit of the doubt.
But PDJ was an experienced signing - I kind of expect more from him.

[ChequeredJersey]

Can we start Matthews at lock and Easter at 8 next match please?!

[Toast]

The scrum was rubbish. A better team than Newcastle would have won with Quins scrum going backwards. It was like an Italian tank.

Collier the most penalised prop on the league. Pathetic. What does that fool Kingston do all day?

And stop smoking excuses Poorfour, PDJ isn't exactly a novice. You have an pathetic excuse for everything.

[propdavid_london]

Hey Toast - no need to be so aggressive towards Poorfour!
We all noticed that the scrum was a bit of an issue - that's not to belittle the Falcons pack which looked pretty solid.
We also expected the scrum to struggle following the loss of JJ and Kohn. With Matthews also out injured we have had to experiment a bit and give a lot of the academy guys exposure - which in itself is not such a bad thing.
Positives are that we have started to get a few wins despite the backwards marching scrum.

[Poorfour]

John Kingston has said before that it still takes time - usually a season - for a new front row to operate effectively as a unit. It's not about the skill or experience of the individuals, it's about the time it takes for the unit to learn how best to work together.

We might wish it wasn't the case, but it does seem to be true. Nearly every new prop we have had in the decade since I've been supporting Quins has taken time to be effective. It happened with Ross, with Andress, with JJ and it is happening with Collier and PDJ. It's not been helped by losing Kohn and Matthews being injured, either.

I can only remember two instances where a prop has had an immediate positive impact - Marler took less than a season to overtake Ceri as first choice, and Lambert was much better overnight when he switched from tight to loose.

There are a couple of points I was trying to make with my earlier response:
1) It's disappointing that we don't have a totally dominant scrum, but it's not what our game is based around and previous experience suggests that it will improve over time
2) As someone else pointed out, despite the pressure we won most of our ball
3) We've already played two of the best packs in the AP - Sarries and Saints - and the scrum was neither a major problem nor a decisive factor. We lost the Saints game to poor kicking from the tee and a poor box kick, and we lost the Sarries game at the breakdown

I'd also want to look a little deeper before condemning Collier for his penalty stats. He has had to play a lot of games so far in what is effectively his first senior season. I'd be interested to see the stats expressed as penalties/minute or penalties/scrum (but I don't know if we can work that out).

[Poorfour]

Oh, and it took Ross 18 months to establish himself when he went to Leinster, so it's not just us...

[propdavid_london]

I'm not sure that John Andress ever really established himself!

I thought that season that we had Peter Bracken in as a short term loan was the only time we dropped someone in and they hit the ground running at prop - although he was very experienced at the time.

[Toast]

Utterly clueless.

[ChequeredJersey]

So how do you think we'll do against Racing, Toast?

[ChequeredJersey]

Should be some nice matchups if we can cope in the scrum: Robshaw vs Lydiate, Care vs Phillips, Nev vs Sexton, Brown vs Hernandez or Fall or Lapeyre...

[Toast]

Racing will smash Quins upfront. 5 points for them, 0 for clueless Quins

[ChequeredJersey]

Cool, good prediction. I suspect 4 for them, 1 for us but am hoping for a win for us. They beat us easily in pre season but we've looked a lot better in recent weeks. Let's see who's right

[ChequeredJersey]

The backline remains the same from last week's victory over Newcastle Falcons, while there are two personnel changes in the forward pack.

Behind an unchanged front row and due to a slight knock picked up by number 8 Tom Guest which keeps him out of this week's game, Charlie Matthews partners George Robson in the second row.

Nick Easter returns to his more familiar position at number 8, while openside flanker and Captain Chris Robshaw makes his first appearance since returning from the Autumn Internationals. Luke Wallace completes the back row.

Among the replacements, Nick Kennedy returns from injury and will look to make his first senior appearance for the Club.

Harlequins Team
15. Mike Brown
14. Tom Williams
13. Matt Hopper
12. Tom Casson
11. Sam Smith
10. Nick Evans
9. Danny Care

1. Joe Marler
2. Dave Ward
3. Will Collier
4. Charlie Matthews
5. George Robson
6. Luke Wallace
7. Chris Robshaw (C)
8. Nick Easter

16. Harry Allen
17. Mark Lambert
18. Paul Doran Jones
19. Nick Kennedy
20. Joe Trayfoot
21. Karl Dickson
22. Ben Botica
23. Charlie Walker

[Poorfour]

That's about the best squad we could field at the moment. I hope that Matthews adds a bit of grunt in the scrum - he does seem to have bulked up while he's been out of action. The bench also has a bit of potential but it depends on whether Kennedy and PDJ gel with the team and have a positive impact.

[Toast]

PDJ will have a positive impact for the opposition. He's useless. Uncontested scrums would be better that using that clown.

[ChequeredJersey]

How many players have represented us in AP/European rugby this season? Must be almost our entire squad plus some others like Baby Chis

[Toast]

Explains why Quins have been so poor in Europe this season. It must take a lot to lose all your pool games buts Quins are going to excel at that this season.

[ChequeredJersey]

I think we'll win at least 2, if we win all 4 remaining then we actually have a good chance of qualifying. Big ask though, I just hope Sexton gets awful ball from Phillips and Lydiate doesn't improve on his AI form which was anonymous at best

[Toast]

Ha ha ha ha, what a great joke!!! We won't win ANY!

Lydiate isn't even playing tomorrow

[ChequeredJersey]

15. Juan Martin Hernandez, 14. Benjamin Fall, 13. Fabrice Estebanez, 12. Alexandre Dumoulin, 11. Marc Andreu, 10. Benjamin Dambielle, 9. Maxime Machenaud, 1. Eddy Ben Arous, 2. Dimitri Szarzewski (capt), 3. Luc Ducalcon, 4. Francois van der Merwe, 5. Juandre Kruger, 6. Wenceslas Lauret, 7. Bernard Le Roux, 8. Jone Qovu Nailiko,
16. Virgile Lacombe, 17. Davit Khinchagishvili, 18. Brian Mujati, 19. Karim Ghezal, 20. Camille Gerondeau, 21. Mike Phillips, 22. Jonny Sexton, 23. Juan Imhoff,


Machenaud starting and no Lydiate. There goes my hopes. Just have to hope we can be competitive at the scrum otherwise it'll be a long 80 mins

[Toast]

Quins have NO chance at the scrum. Ha ha ha!

[ChequeredJersey]

It'll certainly be hard

[Toast]

Quins will get destroyed. It will be hilarious.

[AsLongAsBut100ofUs]

Toast, you are a strange 'fan', if you don't mind me saying so

[ChequeredJersey]

Why would that be hilarious?

[ChequeredJersey]

Let's explore this issue somewhat more. Why do you think you feel the way you feel, Toast?

[AsLongAsBut100ofUs]

CJ, I'm no medical expert as you know, but I sense bitterness

[Toast]

Used to be a STH at Quins but the management are imbeciles. Can't wait to see the look on Clueless O'Shea's face when Metro stuff his crappy Quins.

[ChequeredJersey]

Do you mean the corporate management, rugby management or hospitality management?

[AsLongAsBut100ofUs]

Used to be a STH at Quins but the management are imbeciles. Can't wait to see the look on Clueless O'Shea's face when Metro stuff his crappy Quins.

Ah-ha, you're the one who sold his ticket to the Munster fan?

[ChequeredJersey]

Yes ASBO, it was that one incredibly loud Munster fan that changed that game for us! Not the fact we played Poopie.

[ChequeredJersey]

Toast, I assume that many of the things that used to make you a fan are still going on at the club? Surely it's a bit harsh on the players to support the opposition based on the decisions of the management?

[Toast]

I'm talking about the players too. Journeymen at best.

[ChequeredJersey]

Then why were you a STH? We have never ever had better players than we currently do (well, arguably 2 seasons ago but I'm not sure that is true), and only one coach has been as highly regarded as Conor and he had to leave given the circumstances and we've never ever in the Professional era been as successful or played as good rugby as in the last 3 seasons. If the players now are journeymen (clearly untrue) then the players you were supporting must have been amateurs at best

[sad_gimp]

Can the mods get their act together and get rid of this sad little boy for good please.

[Artful_Dodger]

Good opportunism from Evans to run through the gap left by injured Racing player.

[BigTrevsbigmac]

Unlucky decision there against Quins very marginal.

[stub]

Yep close that...

[stub]

That one straight forward!!

[Artful_Dodger]

I'd have given it.

[stub]

I'd have given it.

Yep - give advantage to attacker and all that.

[Poorfour]

Well, I have to say they've had our scrum on Toast so far. Not.

[ChequeredJersey]

Excellent so far. We will probably fade in the last 20 so this is important

[ChequeredJersey]

Guess who's back? Back again? Nev is back, tell your friends. Nev is back, Nev is back, Nev is back, Nev is back, Nev is back...

[stub]

Nev?

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