Too good: Harlequins
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Harlequins retained their position at the Aviva Premiership summit after recording a 22-9 win over Leicester.
The champions showed that they will not be giving up their title without a fight after emerging from a tight contest with a fine victory, their second consecutive success at the Welford Road venue.
The win was Quins' fourth on the bounce with Nick Evans kicking four penalties to keep the visitors ahead, after he also converted the only try of the match from Tom Williams on 20 minutes - a score which had given Harlequins the advantage following two early Toby Flood penalties.
Danny Care also chipped in with a drop-goal to give Quins a 13-6 half-time lead and although Flood, reduced the arrears with his third penalty early in the second half, the boot of Evans responded with two of his own to ensure his side maintained their unbeaten start to the campaign.
Quins have moved a point clear of Northampton at the top of the Premiership table, while Leicester now find themselves down in third after being unable to score a try for the successive games.
The scorers:
For Leicester:
Pen: Flood 3
For Harlequins:
Tries: Williams
Con: Evans
Pen: Evans 4
Drop: Care
Leicester: 15 Scott Hamilton, 14 Niall Morris, 13 Matt Smith, 12 Anthony Allen, 11 Vereniki Goneva, 10 Toby Flood, 9 Sam Harrison, 8 Jordan Crane (c), 7 Julian Salvi, 6 Steve Mafi, 5 Geoff Parling, 4 Graham Kitchener, 3 Martin Castrogiovanni, 2 Tom Youngs, 1 Boris Stankovich.
Replacements: 16 George Chuter, 17 Dan Cole, 18 Logovi'i Mulipola, 19 Rob Andrew, 20 Thomas Waldrom, 21 Patrick Phibbs, 22 George Ford, 23 Adam Thompstone.
Harlequins: 15 Mike Brown, 14 Tom Williams, 13 Matt Hopper, 12 Jordan Turner Hall, 11 Ugo Monye, 10 Nick Evans, 9 Danny Care, 8 Nick Easter, 7 Chris Robshaw (c), 6 Maurie Fa'asavalu, 5 George Robson, 4 Olly Kohn, 3 James Johnston, 2 Joe Gray, 1 Joe Marler.
Replacements: 16 Rob Buchanan, 17 Darryl Marfo, 18 Will Collier, 19 Charlie Matthews, 20 Tom Guest, 21 Karl Dickson, 22 Rory Clegg, 23 Ross Chisholm.
Referee: David Pearson
Assistant referees: Robin Goodliffe, Gareth Copsey
Television match official: Trevor Fisher
Timekeeper: David Hudson
Comments
melkdave says...
Its now RFU policy for our top clubs 1st team squads to have over 70% of players english or england qualified.They recognised the problem ,might hinder the national teams ,and rectified it.You only have to see the amount of good young talant breaking though at the clubs atm ,to see Englands future is pretty good Foreign players can enhance our game ,and do offer experiance and continiuity to teams when players are on national duty ect.You only have to look at the big 3 irish teams to see their worth in that regard,given the present IRFU playrer policy..I think the english clubs have got the balance right atm,between english and foreign player numbers.Its also good that the club coaches are now looking at increasing players skill levals ,and at pace Not just the brawn ect of past years.
Posted 13:57 23rd September 2012
lawynd says...
And to be fair to Leicester (in terms of English players - we deserved to lose yesterday regardless), we're missing Micky Young, Ben Youngs, Matthew Tait, Miles Benjamin, Rob Hawkins, Tom Croft, Kieran Brookes and Louis Deacon to injury and we've also got Brett Deacon, Ed Slater, Richard Thorpe, Matt Cornwell, Andy Forsyth, Fraser Balmain, Ryan Bower, Joe Cain, Alex Lewington, Jimmy Stevens and Andy Symons all involved in the squad this season.
Posted 11:24 23rd September 2012
kybone says...
hellovanite- Also, which league has the largest contingent of foreign players and has become notorious over the past couple of years for signing up every foreign player they can get their hands on? The French Top 14. Now what is this same league also notorious for? A boring forward orientated style of play often with very few tries in the big games. A pattern which i see is, as more big name foreign players join a club, the worse the style of play seems to get- Sarries and Toulon are typical examples.
Posted 11:06 23rd September 2012
kybone says...
hellovanite- Who won this game? Harlequins, the reigning champions. The Quins, i believe, have a senior squad of 37 players, 5 of which are foreign and 32 are English. The Quins match day squad of 23 contained only 3 non-English players. Leicester on the other hand have a lot more foreign players and, as the article states, they have failed to score a try for successive games. The Tigers were are a far better side, and dominated English and European rugby, when they were packed full of English players. Don't get me wrong, there have been loads of quality foreign players in the Prem over the years, but to suggest that they've shown us how to play the game is nonsense. Two of Englands biggest clubs, Quins and Saints, both got relegated at a time when their transfer policy was to flood their squad with so called foreign 'superstars' and actually Bruce Reihana, who you gave as an example of a foreign player to have improved our game, was part of an expensively assembled Saints' team that finished rock bottom of the Prem and went down.
Posted 10:50 23rd September 2012
hellovanite says...
It's not dull at all Armchair, but it has taken a rather large injection of foreign players over the last 10 years to convert it from 10 to 15 man rugby and still we ask the question has it improved the standard of English rugby? It is an interesting competition the Aviva, probably my fav outside of ITM Cup (or as I refer to it the NPC). The difference being that in NZ we can select from the entire player base and there is only one agenda, produce great players for higher honours. Where as because your comp is run by privately owned clubs the agenda is only to get the best players they can to win the competition. Imagine if you could select the likes of N.Evans for England duties or Bruce Reihana who you had in his prime or Luke McAlister or a dozen South Africans playing there that are ineligible and halting the progression of local talent. Yes they bring something extra, but in some ways they also take something away too
Posted 00:33 23rd September 2012
ArmchairGeneral says...
I don't know. Folks who say this league is dull just don't get it!
Posted 20:09 22nd September 2012