Ealing Experience Extinction (*) Event in Epic Encounter

For those of you, who are great students of second world war military history, you will be aware that although the Axis powers main tank - the Tiger (Panzer) (or Ealing RFC) was heavier and had greater fire power and armament - the Allies offering - the Sherman tank (or Harlequins RFC) gained ultimate superiority on the battlefield through increased speed, greater reliability and more numbers.

Ye Gods….I am not sure what was more surprising, early signs of spring in February or a squad of 22! Actual selection decisions to make! The game had it all, backs to the wall tackling, offloading, superb tries, pa moaning in the bar again afterwards about lack of ball and most importantly the ability to start with a near full strength team with some superb finishers to come on.

Particularly Kirk and Paul Lister who turned up with two minutes to spare, after taking all week to make the journey from Monmouth back to London having left on Sunday. This allowed us to start with both in the back row, with Paul Baker making up a drooling tri-combination and all three had a major contribution to our success.

Ealing looked up for it, albeit only had a few subs, they were big, top heavy and having narrowly lost to them last year in a bruising encounter we knew we were in for a tough game. The warm up lasted 20 minutes - 10 minutes too long imo and for some reason the backs (led by Mawson) were practising their moves on the tarmac path but no matter, it was good and we were ready.

We kicked off and were immediately under pressure. Only some excellent chopping from Hill, Back and Dallaglio in the forwards and our equally to die for centre pairing of Mawson and Wally, kept us in the game for the first few minutes as wave after wave of panzers (sorry Ealing forwards) trundled towards us. However they soon tired, we quickly recovered our mojo, and after they chipped through, pa caught the ball, retaliated with a delightful chip that Gus picked up, side stepped his man and almost scored in the corner except for a last ditch tackle.

We then were awarded and scored a penalty by James Loisoz. I would love to explain the reason for it but for those at the game, you will be aware that the decisions awarded were somewhat hard to fathom. At one stage, it looked as if, the officials were trying to organise an elaborate game of Petanque. 3 - 0 to Quinns.

We then started playing the sort of off-loading game that will no doubt have drawn the attention of Warren Gatland as he considers a few bolters for the forthcoming Lions tour. Karl and Gavin crashed it up the middle and after waves of Quinns attacks, with Big Jim, Nogs and Emmanuelle smashing through the tiring ealing forwards, Loisoz fed your match day reporter who scythed through the centres and dotted down under the posts. 10 - 0 to Quinns.

Half time beckoned we re-grouped and Si Morgan (now the only man on the pitch, left with genuine pace in our team as he demonstrated through some long runs in the second half) came on the wing. We realised that they would come hard at us and so we did the best possible thing and scored a great try. From a line-out that we won, the forwards, rumbled the ball upwards, simon our sniping scrum half fed to Loisoz who jinked through, fed Marren, who offloaded back to Loisoz to score under the posts. The conversion meant 17 - 0!

Fresh legs were required and Duncan Threadgold (who had been busy quaffing protein shakes and doing gym exercises on the sidelines), Rupert Shaw (debut for the vets? and most welcome) and Hugh (replacing the superb Simon from the 1’s) came on and picked up the mantle carrying hard and tackling on the game line. From open play Matt Ferraby barrelled his way through the line, the ball was recycled and fed to Loisoz who drop kicked to make it 20-0. Ealing heads were down.

However they were not buried, they scored a well worked try, started gathering momentum and then their winger scored another which led to Marren substituting himself and bringing on Mike Goodman who ran and tackled hard steadying the ship. Ealing never gave up, their scrum and fly half looked v dangerous throughout and only some last ditch tackling throughout the team at the end led us to victory - 20 - 12. They will feel on another day they may have scored more tries (albeit so should have we). Our scrummaging through nogs, brian, gav, matt and karl was fantastic, our line outs looked good at times, don’t ask me for more details, it is all a mystery to me.

Next week Barnes at home. For those of you who are still thinking about coming down, we have four games on the spin, so the more players the better and we are now three wins on the trot. The big squad was crucial to winning the game today! Congratulations all - a good win and a real boost to the season, semi final in a couple of weeks and if we win that the final of the cup beckons!.

(*) N.B. This is the sort of fake news that the Donald likes to propogate