ComeAllWithin.co.uk - Harlequins in the Middlesex 7s 2007

Such a consideration was largely redundant yesterday as our glorious summer continued with the usual grey clouds and rain.

The relevance of this competition has already had an airing on the message board but Tony Diprose’s comments on Sky suggested that the tournament is now an important part of the pre-season, a theme I will return to later.

Quins were drawn in Pool D and were playing Sale and Newcastle. The squad was made up of various academy players, a couple of the rugby league boys and assorted other waifs and strays who were “guesting” for the club. The squad suggested one of two things.

The club couldn’t give a monkeys about this tournament (they were by no means alone in this)
Our worrying and already absurdly long injury list, allied to Friday night’s game against Samoa meant it was down to scraping up the last men standing and ringing in some random punters who might have been able to do a job on the day.

I suspect that a combination of the two factors led to our performances on the field. In terms of the bare facts, Quins were out after the pool stages having lost both games.

Game 1

First up were the Sharkists of Sale.

From the start James Percival misjudged the kick off which should have been left to go straight into touch instead he tipped the ball into touch and possession was surrendered to Sale – a recurring theme from the Quins in both games. Quins won the ball back after a scrappy lineout and then moved play to half way until a stray pass into touch surrendered possession again.

Sale won the lineout, moved the ball the width of the field to the 22, recycled the ball before coming back the other way, a nice show and go round the outside saw a covering tackle made in the corner although the Sale player off loaded and Sale were in the try area, sloppy work from Ryan Manyika who should have been covering to make the conversion harder meant that James Jones got closer to the posts to make the conversion easier. 7-0 Sale.

At the restart, Percival again failed to adjust to the kickoff, and again tipped the ball into touch for a Sale throw. The lineout wasn’t straight giving Quins the chance to regain possession. Quins then moved to the Sale 10 yard line, largely by attacking through a narrow channel until Phil Davies got pinged for holding on and possession was returned to Sale. 20 yards down field Sale were awarded another penalty for stripping the ball at the ruck.

Sale then moved across the pitch and back again before some good stepping from Sale number 10 Iousua (sp) and supine defending from 3 Quins allowed Sale to move into a 14 nil lead

Ironic cheers then filled the ground as Percival managed to do what he failed at the first two attempts which was to catch a kick off cleanly. From the ruck the ball was moved along the line to Amesbury who finally received the ball had a good run along the east stand touchline, used the supporting runners as a decoy to cut back inside and offloaded to Manyika on the 22 metre line. Quins messed up the resulting ruck but we were saved by a Sale knock on. Despite some poor passing Quins then had a prolonged spell of possession and, after the half time hooter has sounded Amesbury offloaded to scrum half Rhodes for Quins first try. Amesbury converted giving the Sharks a 14-7 lead at half time.

Quins kicked off to start the second half which Sale gathered. Quins then used their physicality well and almost turned the ball over with good counter-rucking before a strong scrum and follow up saw Sale driven back into their 22. Robshaw and Percival provided a strong forward platform at scrum and ruck, but strength and power were not our problems, width and finesse were.

Following various scrums Sale were driven past the ninety and Quins forward power paid off with a turned over ball.

From the scrum Manyika executed a mid field switch before ghosting through the gap and was hauled down just short of the try line. Amesbury followed up and drove over from one yard in true Nick Easter fashion. Despite the conversion being virtually in front of the posts. Amesbury contrived to miss the kick. 14-12 Sale. It is at this point where my scoring and that of the official scorers diverge. From my position in the East Stand Amesbury missed this kick and the touch judges flags didn’t go up. However, both the Stadium scoreboard and Sky “awarded” the conversion. In the end this error didn’t make any difference to the result but does raise questions about how basic errors like this can be made. It should be noted that the same happened in Wasps first game where the score was revised mid way though when they had realised the error. Unless I missed it the error here was not corrected and on reviewing the game on Sky plus they had the final result as 19-21, it should have been 17-21.

Sale won the re-start which was a little to far to allow a proper challenge, they then moved play to the halfway line and were then pinged for holding on. What followed was a cameo of Quins performance all afternoon. Manyika tapped and passed back to a block of players all bunched on the 10 yard line. 6 players were all within 10 yards of each other in centre field, all in a line with no one offering width or options. Sale failed to press which allowed Quins out of jail. Quins regrouped and thanks to some good stepping from one of the league boys Amesbury took the pass, cut inside, broke a tackle and went under the posts with a rather grating “Hollywood” dive. It was a shame he didn’t pay as much attention to the conversions as he did to the diving. Again, in front of the posts, he missed. 19(17)-14. The two missed conversions were to prove costly.

The kick off was again too long and allowed Sale a comfortable catch and ruck. Sale kept possession until the ball went out to the Fijian winger Iosua. Amesbury was left all alone on the wing where Quins poor defensive alignment left a yawning gap inside, which the Samoan duly took stepping inside and round the Quins skipper with effortless ease, beat the sweeper and in the in goal area and despite close attention of Quins defenders passed the ball inside to the Sale number 3 who scored under the posts, Manyika made a rather embarrassing attempt to put the Sale number 3 off but frankly he shouldn’t have bothered or at least tried harder than he did.

The covering defenders should have tied the winger down to the corner but didn’t. Sale went under the posts, knocked over the conversion and took the game. 19(17)-21.

Despite playing poorly this was a game Quins could and should have won. They didn’t because on two occasions when they had the chance to keep Sale in the corners to score tries they switched off and let Sale get under the posts. Amesbury missed two conversions in front of the posts which were regulation and would have won, or at least tied, the game. Whatever else he is, he is no kicker.

Game 2

This was Newcastle’s first game of the competition and I will spare you all the details save to say we got an absolute shellacking. Newcastle won the game 40 points to 7 and went on to win the tournament by beating Worcester in what turned out to be a closely fought final.

Whilst we had our chances in the first half, Newcastle, who have apparently been grooming a squad which has been doing the sevens circuit, always looked comfortable and in control. There were few names that most people would recognise but the Falcons looked a cohesive unit who moved the ball at pace and used the full width and depth that the pitch had to offer. Quins looked like a scratch unit that had just met each other a few minutes before kick off.

The high watermark was when Zeb Luisi scored the first try of the second half, this time converted – Amesbury having handed over the kicking role, after this the game reverted to type with Newcastle running in a further 3 tries in the second half. The performance was shambolic from the team who looked like they had no real ideas of how to execute the basics of the game. Some of the defending was embarrassing and comical – in some cases from the rugby league players, the self styled “hard men” of the oval game.

The performance in the second game goes to the heart of what the competition is there for. Newcastle as well as some other teams (London Irish, Worcester and a few others) obviously set out to make an impact. Teams like Quins, Wasps (and others) clearly did not. Whilst the World Cup has obviously made an impact on squads it was clear that a number of clubs gave this competition no mind whatsoever, in which case why bother turning up and exposing players to potential injury in what is to the clubs eyes a total waste of time.

I can’t see that shipping 40 points in 14 minutes of rugby it to anyone’s benefit.

Is the Middlesex Sevens an Irrelevance?

I suspect that for a number of clubs it is, but that depends on the individual circumstances at the time. There is no reason why Quins cannot put a proper squad together and have a crack at winning this. However, I am also sure that in terms of both coaching staff and supporters it would be seen as a waste of time and effort if it means competing for trophies in the 15’s game. The current Premiership monopoly demonstrates the problems with a closed shop. It wouldn’t take much to freshen up the format with either invitational sides or certain sides from ND1 who would relish the chance to have a crack at the Premiership clubs – something the Premiership clubs seem to be keen to avoid at all costs. A move back to a knockout format would also be better.

The lack of enthusiasm from some clubs is in some ways understandable. It is also a pity, because sevens when it is played well can prove a vital tool in terms of identifying talent and teaching some of the fundamentals of the game in terms of creating space on a rugby field. How to carve out openings, the use of width and depth, the importance of restarts, individual and collective defence, good passing skills, how to run good lines of support, and angles, and ultimately, how to score tries.

What was very noticeable yesterday was the basic skills in the English game leave much to be desired – a point demonstrated by the England team in Marseilles later on in the evening. I counted numerous occasions during the day - and this applies to all the clubs that were playing, where the head down and drive approach or the wrong option was taken with team-mates in space and with a try scoring option on. A number of occasions when simple basic passing prevented a team exploiting an opportunity that had been present seconds earlier. Very often there is a very small window of opportunity to take advantage of situations and poor basic skills mean the likelihood of being able to exploit those opportunities is vastly diminished.

New Zealand’s domination of the short from of the game is a case in point. It doesn’t make them the best because they are good at sevens but it certainly helps hone the inate ball skills and game management they are so famous for. Watching England plod, fumble and scratch around for the last three years has been exasperating but three weeks out from the next world cup, our backline still couldn’t locate a coherent move even if they were locked in a small dark room with a map and a searchlight.

The crowd was well down on the 50 odd thousand who used to attend this event, in some part due to the fluorescent jacketed jobsworths that have been alluded to on the message board. For some reason the 4 beers per person rule also grates, especially when two of you go to get more than 4 beers and they must be paid for separately in blocks of 4 because “that’s the rules”.

As usual the car park was the place to be although again the high spirited atmosphere was largely absent apart from small pockets. A group of lads situated close to the Harlequins ladies chose to spend the afternoon upending each other head first into what presumably was very large container of melted ice and attempting to see which one could stay under the longest or drown first. I am glad I have reached an age where such games are no longer necessary as it looked a particularly unpleasant way of passing a few brief seconds on a Saturday afternoon.

Despite the weather I enjoyed the day, largely because I caught up with friends I hadn’t seen for far too long and I will hopefully be back next year. Is the sevens irrelevant as a competition? I suspect it may well be. Which is a shame because there is an awful lot in the short form of the game that English rugby needs to learn.

Bookmark or share this story with: