...first time I got a chance to see the Quins for 80 minutes....here are my thoughts.

Defence....far better than the last 3 seasons. In previous years I have seen us get rolled..especially in the second half of games, but this team seem to have it in them. They work well as a unit and Hudds worked hard for their 3 scores.
Attack....better than last year, but as the pundits pointed out, Hudds put real pressure on the kicker for the 5th and we suffered there. I would say that with 15 to go, I would have run Pryce into the ground......every time he got the ball with 3 yards in front of him Hudds looked rattled.

Chuffed that both the Hudds players interviewed and Carney recognised that we are a good team that will never give up......we will win more at home this year than we will lose.......and I don't think St Helens will be that confident of getting the win next week.

Overall..we bombed some chances, but not as many as Hudds and the better team won. Still, we are second tonight and I think 4th is the worst position we can end up in by Monday......i'd have taken that i'd you'd offered it to me at the start of the season.

Well done L&L.....I am sure the crowd will get their very own thread on the VT, but you made some noise

Good points Gutterfax



I thought the positives were Melling, Pryce, Ellis & to a lesser extent, Burnett. Also our fitness was a lot better than in the first 3 games, we finished the last 20 looking by far the better team.
The defence has most definitely improved on last season, still quite a lot to work to do on the attack.

The negatives were Howell(never looked like making a break), he seems a totally different player.
A poor kicking game, which was surprising considering it was a strong point last week.
Also I know it's been said many times on this forum, but a prop or two of considerable size and strength would be very welcome

Tough game for both teams and you're certainly no pushovers this season. Great 'never say die' attitude tonight. Good luck for the rest of the season and hope you continue to make London a difficult place to play.

Cheers,
Raaaay.

it was scrappy but the best team won, saying that though quins did play for the full 80 and kept the scoreline pretty close for the amount of poscession they had.. much improved on previous seasons

well played tonight.

Harlequins look a very strong side this season and pushed Hudds right to the final whistle. Hope you beat sides like St.Helens,Leeds(again),Bradford,Hull FC and Hull KR. Top 8 finish for you this season I reckon.





Good game by both sides and harlequins proved they are top 8 worthy

Apart from a few spells I thought we were pretty poor tonight and I hate to say it but even players like Rob Purdham were making uncharacteristic mistakes. There seemed to be no idea about what to do on the last tackle,and no kicking game especially when Ellis was off having taken a ball in the er... balls !! Think Ellis was our best player in spite of being off for a long spell recovering! Was going to start laying into Kouparitsas (is he the new Williamson?) but in the last 10-15 mins he seemed to start to do the right things - jury's still out on him as far as I am concerned.

On the plus side though we got ourselves back into the game, where perhaps in the last 2 seasons we would have been steamrollered by the Giants, and although I don't think we were going to threaten a shock comeback win we did keep going to the end.
I'd like to see Pryce get some game time - if he can get match fit then he could do some real damage to the opposition. Wonder how bad JO'C 's injury is? Will this lead to a chance for Calderwood on the wing?

As a neutral I thought it was great to see the Quins working hard in defence and not giving up. Had you not had three injured players on the field (two deadlegs and a bash in the bollox) then you might have finished off those last plays rather than cocking them up. And a damn shame the ball went to ground on that wonderful break you made in the first half. Although Hudds' try misses were obvious, Quins also botched a fair few opportunities (though as I say, I think that is because you were playing injured). More importantly, though, at this stage in the season and at home - you competed, and competed well. With your players recovered from their deadlegs and bashed bollox, and assuming you don't suffer significant injuries to your main guys, there is no reason on that showing why you can't be in the top eight this season IMO.

I'm not looking forward to your visit next weekend!

Missed Gale on this kicks this week (looks injured), Randall kept kicking direct to the Giants which did us no good. Best team one but we have come on a lot since last year and good to see a team effort until the end.

Good man Raaaay.......If you can get your backs to click (and not bomb so many tries

) I wouldn't be stunned to see the Giants at OT or at least Wembley this year........looking like a well balanced team

The video referee played a blinder as well !!!

Kicking game let us down tonight! Think that about sums it up! Did we actually get 1 kick away that did not go straight to hand?
Hudds on the otherhand awesome defence, and good kick option, they should have scored at least 2 more as well

Had the pass to Purds gone to hand in the first half I think the result woudl have been different

....Not sure abou that. It would have been 6-0 and even if we had then added the Pryce try, 10 nil, but I think Hudds had the measure of us.
As for the Bubble.....I am in agreement with others......jury is still out.

Let's stuff St Helens in Widnes next week and get back to the top where we belong!

Think our lack of a last kick option was more to do with some great closing down play each time from the Giants, they executed their game plan well and should have been some many scores in front, however, without doubt that would have been a game where under Mac we would have capitulated and seen +40 put on us, so a fantastic improvement and the team are doing all tha any supporter can ask of them. Best team won, well played Giants and you will be a tough outfit to beat this season.

Well played Huddersfield - an organised, resillient side, excellent in defence. Apart from the first half an hour I thought we generally lacked ideas, but we were as some mentioned hamstrung by injuries picked up. Thought Ellis was superb when he was on; Other than that I can't recall many standouts.

Still remain very disappointed by our centres - they don't seem to want to make decisions, tentative and it just isn't clicking.

I don't think we were terrible by any means, just Huddersfield played well.

Phil Clarke made the interesting comment (well, there's a first time for everything!) that we don't score long distance tries - perhaps it might be an idea to give Calderwood a start against Saints next week.

How dare you be so negative!!!!!!

Purdham had a shocking game, you are spot on there. Our forwards were very poor going forward. We got absolutely hammered territory wise. Only positives for me were the defence, nothing good can be said about our attack.

Yup, have to agree. We were better than last season, but still pretty poor - desire was there for sure, nice to see, but let's be honest last season is a weak benchmark and I reckon a few people have lost perspective. Brown and Brough took us to the cleaners, especially down our right hand side, and only poor execution in the final play stopped a total slaughtering (on many more occasions than the 4 video ref no tries). Maybe I watched a different match though.

I also had to contend with having Beavis and Buthead's non-stop match commentary from the "loyal and loud" section. Back to AG for the next match methinks...

If you could keep that performance up all season there is no reason why you could not make the play ofs. What you desparately need is 3 or 4 players to give you some back up.

Keal carlisle ( hooker) would be a good loan signing for you as he will not get near the Giants team when Robinson comes back in a couple of weeks.

Whilst i thought you were second best there is no doubt that there is a good team spirit at Quins, a never say die attitude and a strong work ethic. That is not something i would have said about Quins teams over the last 5 years.
After a performance like that i see no reason why SL teams would turn you down for loans for a season.

I often do apparently



Watching Brown, and in particiular Brough, just highlighted how poor our half backs are. Gale had his usual 10 minute spell of being brilliant and 70 minutes of doing very little.

With regards to AG, I sit there, and it was full of kids yesterday, so I wouldn't go there either, it was painful, we moved to the other end at half time

Gale got a deadleg in the first few minutes so limped through the game.

As for bad kicking if you watch Hudds they drop 1,2,5 back on the 4th ready to recieve the kick-That makes it difficult to hit the ground on the kick.

The better side won-Brown and Brough were great.

Not a great effort. Poor defensive line speed (unlike Hudds who's defensive line speed was excellent all game, and rarely off-side despite what half our fans seemed to think). Pack failed completely to dominate going forward, the only time we made any good yards in a set was with the help of a penalty. Purdham was poor, the halves were poor, Dorn's positioning at full back was hopeless and our back three let the ball bounce 2 or 3 times every time Hudds kicked it deep or high and never beat the first man bringing the ball back (I miss Mclinden).

I didnt even think our defence was that good. Hudds could easily have scored another 4 tries.

Most teams drop 1,2,5 back on the 4th. That's why decent sides run a 2nd man play on the 4th to take advantage of the shortened line (or deter putting the sweepers back next time). Good defence positioning is no excuse for poor kick preparation, far too often it looked like the 5th was a surprise to us.

It's a funny one. After the scars of last year half of me cant totally move on from those horror memories and half expect that monster to return, but the other half of me has faith that we have actually moved on to a new era.

On the positive side I think the class of 2010 would have capitulated after Giants 3rd try but the class of 2011 were very resilient and hung in there. Andy Ellis looked sound and is starting to flourish, Chris Bailey is always looking for options.

On the negative side, we lacked so much creativity at 7, compare Randall to Brough

our forwards are small and rely on getting to ground quickly and a quick play the ball, Giants bigger blokes completely dominated us and didnt allow this to happen. Some of the players were well below par, Purdo (mind might have been on events in Cumbria), Clubby, Randall.

As an aside, how did we all feel about the Friday night experience ??

I can't make my mind up about Fridays. The atmosphere seems better, but then I, like many others, struggle to get to the match on time - I prefer having plenty of time before and after the game to relax.