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Harlequins chuffed as 'real weapon' makes difference at Newcastle

By PA
Harlequins celebrate one of their tries at Newcastle on Friday night (Photo by PA)

Harlequins head coach Danny Wilson believes his side found a “different way” to secure a 38-14 Gallagher Premiership win over Newcastle at Kingston Park. James Chisholm and Marcus Smith both scored either side of Adam Radwan’s try to give Quins a 14-7 lead at the break.

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Smith then extended their advantage from the tee minutes into the second half before Ben Redshaw bagged a second try, providing some hope for the hosts. However, a ruthless final 10 minutes saw Jack Walker, Oscar Beard and Sam Riley all cross for Quins to cruise to victory, ending a three-game winless run in the Premiership.

Their win comes after last weekend’s Big Game fixture draw against Leicester and Wilson believes his side “professionally responded” against the Falcons on Friday night. He said: “We knew coming here after the Big Game, this has happened last year, then come to Newcastle, which is a real challenge, different type of venue and different type of game.

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    Nick Mallett questions SA teams Champions Cup participation

    “A team that is good at home, we gave a huge amount of respect this week to what they’re like at home, forget last week’s result against Northampton on the road. Steve Diamond has put a backbone into them at home, a tough team to break down.

    “You probably saw that as well, it took us a while to get where we needed to get to, we had to do it a different way. I thought our driving lineout in particular was a real weapon for us tonight, it gave us a foothold in the game and eventually got us to where we needed to tonight.

    Match Summary

    0
    Penalty Goals
    1
    2
    Tries
    5
    2
    Conversions
    5
    0
    Drop Goals
    0
    97
    Carries
    80
    2
    Line Breaks
    6
    13
    Turnovers Lost
    10
    2
    Turnovers Won
    5

    “I’m most proud of the fact the players have come here tonight and professionally responded to the Big Game last week, good week’s training and come here to get the job done.”

    Quins proved to be especially ruthless throughout with their driving maul, something Wilson was pleased to see. “It was a real weapon tonight, it was really pleasing,” he added. “We work hard on it, last year in particular it was a real weapon for us, maybe hasn’t has been as big a weapon this year, so to get it back on track a little bit more tonight was important and contributed to the win.”

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    It was another frustrating display for Newcastle, who provided stiff competition for Quins before the visitors’ destructive 10 minute period saw them run away with the game. The Falcons remain bottom of the Premiership table and director of rugby Steve Diamond described the result as a “cricket score”.

    He said: “I’m probably the most disappointed I have been since I have been here, if I’m perfectly honest. 60 minutes gone, we are 17-14 down and we have not played particularly well in certain areas.

    “We couldn’t defend the maul. We carried on, for some unknown reason, kicking the ball off the field which they just got another lineout, drove it, got another penalty, kicked it in the corner and scored.

    “So disappointed, it’s a lot of hard work and effort that went in out there, a lot of blood in the changing rooms if I’m honest, a lot of knocks and bruises. It looks like a cricket score, which in effect it was after the last 10 to 15 minutes.”

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    J
    JW 1 hour ago
    The raw data that proves Super Rugby Pacific is currently a cut above

    Your links are private if you were intending them to be shared.


    URC us doing very well with it’s competitiveness given that each group has it’s own salary caps and entirely different makeups, from clubs, to provinces, to franchises and regions. One group might be teams from the most populace country with the biggest rugby base while another the smallest, with the least amount of rugby players to chose from.

    On average, just about one SRP game every weekend has been decided in the last five minutes!

    I would also be interested in a average clock length (don’t need to go into the whole BIP hole) showing how long the last phases are taking (because one team is trying to still alter the match points outcome in some way) to complete before the game finally ends. I don’t know if its more common this year but in general I wonder if its a stat that can show how good games are/were?

    17.7%

    You really had the same reversed 10 points lead % as you had lead changes after the 75th?


    Some of these values while standing out numerically against each other have a much less correlative impact than some that tighter differences which might only stick out a small amount. While SRP’s ones might not necessarily be such examples (and here I’m still going off the basic principle that everyone knew this was happening, even though I was challenged about that assumption) they have had the advantage of the fixtures being were doctored even more than normal. In this instance its irrelevant whether they were doctored or not of course, but I think it’s pretty safe to say that there hasn’t been a lot of cross over of worst v best yet. Maybe it just feels like that because the worst are so much better this year? I definitely think that it is undeniable that all the bottom teams (that remain) have gotten better.


    So I would be very interested in another weight graph of the games still, but regardless I don’t think it’s fair for SRP to claim anything over the other leagues yet. Certainly as I have said numerous times about the Top 14, it’s sub par compared to what it’s billed up to be, but that is the only league in this group that has promotion and relegation, which is the antitheses of a competitive league, so a trade off there.


    Thank you very much for sharing your research though Dmitri, I hope you find another topic to get interested about!

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