Accuracy cost Quins in Friendly

On the warmest day of the year Harlequin Amateurs travelled to Staines for a friendly after the Cup match was scrapped late on in the week.

Suffering a few injuries from last week the squad not quite as strong as possible but still in good shape were confident that they could get a win against Staines on the third occasion.

Quins were slow out of block allowing Staines to gain good territory, spotting a very dodgy defensive line Staines exploited it with their open-side flanker gaining a lot of ground before being brought down on the 5m line, managing to pop it up saw Staines open the scoring. The conversion was good from the touch line, 7-0 Staines.

This seemed to galvanise Quins who started playing the kind of rugby that provided a lot of success, giving away a lot of penalties for infringements at the ruck, George Jaques kicked to touch, with a line out on the 22, Quins won it but JC was under a lot of pressure managed to get the pass away to Si Rowland, with Ash Armel-close running a great line, through a big gap, managed to power his way past two ore defenders to go over by the posts. George Jaques slotted the kick 7-7.

Quins carried on playing well, with the lions share of the possession and territory but just couldn't find the cutting edge to find a another score, something that probably cost them the game.

The half finished with no more scores at 7-7.

The second half started very well for Halrequins, George Jaques picking a pass of his feet, found himself with half a gap, which he exploited to run in for 70m under the posts, he converted his own try to make it 7-14.

Unfortunately for Quins they didn't switch back on for the restart and Staines found themselves scoring soon after, with a hint of a forward pass, the conversion squeezed in to level the scores 14-14.

Quins got close a couple more times, with JC spotting a gap chipped and chased to the try line, but was undone by the final bounce of the ball which saw Stained ground it for a drop out, sometimes games come down the the bounce of the ball, just ask England in Paris.

Staines scored another, and with kick successful took the lead 21-14. Everything seemed to be going wrong for Harlequins, and Staines scored once more through their open-side who had been a thorn in the side for the whole match, the kick was good, the score 28-14 seemed to be slipping away from Quins.

But fighting with spirit, Aaron Addis spotting a gap on the blindside, received a pop from Josh Carter to run in a try from 40m under the posts, George slotted the kick 28-21. Quins with their tails up were looking for the next score to tie the match.

Not wishing to look like I'm picking on anyone, but the final play for the game summed up the match for me. Doing all the hard work and creating an overlap, the final pass went to ground. This happened on at least 3 occasions hence the title of the report.

This accuracy will come from training together, lets all get down to St Mary's on Wednesday, because if we can start finishing off all our opportunities no team will live with us.