Go
for the Grubber ...Invest in the Intercept … and …Practice your Pirouette!!
Cast your minds back if you will to Quins first home game of the season v Sarries. Were we all excited? Well maybe just a little!
But we didn’t get what we bargained for and neither did Quins on that cold, dark, damp, September night, down at the Stoop. To say that they weren’t prepared for the dish that Saracens served up to them would be an understatement and they didn’t respond with a rehash of their own play to counteract it – not at all.
Quins had the majority of possession, for the whole game! And Sarries defended in their own 22 for the majority of it too. And Sarries defended and defended and Quins bulldozed and bulldozed, again and again and got absolutely nowhere. It was heartbreaking to watch but to be on the pitch must have been exhausting for Quins.
On numerous occasions I saw a Quins player waiting on the wing. Why? This was the time to have all hands on deck because nothing short of a trebuchet was going to get that ball plus a player past the Saracens wall. And Quins didn’t.
But what did happen was a move that has become increasingly prevalent in teams’ play.
Yes,
it’s the Charge Down.
I
used to be of the opinion that it wasn’t ‘real rugby’, ‘spoils’
if you like and somehow unfair and unsatisfying to watch as you knew
what was coming before it happened!! A try is then scored unopposed;
walking over sometimes and usually with the luxury of dotting down
under the posts.
But in completing a successful charge down, more often than not, a player is facing a very powerful swinging leg and boot and it is a scenario where they place themselves in real danger.
In
this match, when Quins were virtually on their knees, Charlie Hodgson
took his chance and committed to a charge down from the boot of his
opposite number, Nick Evans, to gain his reward for his team.
This
is the first time I remember feeling so sorry for a team who seemed
to have done their all. But in front of a crowd of 13,100 and a full
time score of 0-39, had they?
Some Harlequins fans left the Stoop early, walking out in droves. Maybe like me, they just couldn’t bare to see their beloved team being so mercilessly denied a score – but we’re always saying it, a win’s a win!
And it is.
Recently I saw Billy Vunipola charge down against Saints at the Stadium MK. I don’t think anyone was expecting it but it was quick and clever, so why not? Unfortunately he dropped the ball just short of the line but hey, they’re all at it.
Add
to that; Jonathan Joseph who has been crowned both
the RPA Players’ Player of the Year and The England Player of the
Year 2015 in association with Rhead Group
and if he’s not Passmaster of the pirouette then I don’t know who
is. A fantastic all rounder; I’d say he’s already won Strictly.
If
one team decides that their game plan will be to defend and wear
their opponents out completely, then the other team must dig into
their repertoire and re-adjust on the hoof, bringing on the charge
downs, the grubbers, the interceptions, the over head passes and the
ever fancy footwork, or like this game and the game for Wasps last
Saturday, it will only go one way.