Tag: HARLEQUINS

Joe Gray, the hooker for the Aviva Premiership Rugby Union club Harlequins FC has urged his team mates to move on from their recent defeats at the hands of Saracens FC and Exeter Chiefs as they prepare for the new season of the Heineken Cup that kicks off on Sunday. The Premiership champions take on French side Biarritz in the first match of their pool on Sunday and having been defeated in two consecutive matches by The Sarries and The Chiefs, their confidence is extremely low.

The champions started the new season of the Premiership in blistering fashion with emphatic wins but two consecutive defeats has derailed their campaign to some extent and most of the players at the club believe that the Heineken Cup fixture couldn’t have come at a better time for the club. And Gary, speaking to a local radio station, stated that the players of Harlequins FC are definitely not pleased with the performances they put up in their previous two encounters and they have discussed about things they need to rectify and had long training sessions to rectify those mistakes.

He went on to add that the club was unlucky against The Chiefs, admitting that they played some of the best rugby on that night but The Quins could have played a bit better. He also added that in spite of the opposition’s defense being very soft, they couldn’t take advantage of it and suffered the consequences as a result.

But Gray is adamant that Harlequins FC will leave the disappointments of home and come out with flying colors against Biarritz and he himself is also relishing the chance to prove himself in the big stage of European competition. Irish side Connacht and Italian side Zebre form the other members of The Quins’ pool in Europe.

Aviva Premiership champions Harlequins FC will look to bounce straight back from their defeat at the hands of Saracens FC last weekend as they take on the Exeter Chiefs in the Aviva Premiership this weekend. The champions currently lie in second place on the table after making a blistering start to the new campaign and it seemed that they would knock off whichever team that comes in their way.

But that hasn’t happened and after building an unbeaten streak at the start of the campaign, but that fell apart when they were stopped in their tracks by the brilliant Saracens FC team, which took a 16-18 win home. Although the loss would come as a blow for the high flying champions, Harlequins FC will know that their game improved a lot over last weekend’s game and in all probability, they deserved more from the game than they got.

The Quins travel to Devon to take on The Chiefs and they know that they will need to be on guard at all times if they are to protect themselves from getting hammered by Exeter, something that has been a reality for many a side which has gone there with high hopes. And in order to go for the win, the team is likely to make wholesale changes to the lineup that started against Saracens FC with Karl Dickson replacing Danny Care at scrum half, Joe Marler giving way to Mark Lambert at front row.

Harlequins FC have made it quite a habit of winning their away fixtures, and have won all of their last five games on the road. But The Chiefs are also almost unbeatable at home, having suffered just one loss since February, which means that the fans can expect a brilliant match which will see at least one streak broken.

Harlequins look to have an easy draw for the upcoming Heineken Cup in the group stages. They have been lucky and look sure to qualify as their group is not so tough. The English Champions will have to face Biarritz as their toughest opponents in Pool number Three but then they also have weaker teams such as Connacht of Ireland and Zebre of Italy. Hence they should be able to qualify quite easily unless they mess up against one of the weaker teams, which then will be their fault completely.

Leicester on the other hand has been put in Pool number two alongside the French giants Toulouse. This will be a mouth watering encounter. Leicester lost to Harlequins in the Aviva Premiership final last month and hence Harlequins have an advantage over them if they do meet in the following rounds.

On the other Exeter, who will be debuting their Heineken Cup have got a tough group to compete with. Alongside them are the reigning champions of the Heineken Cup Leinster, Scarlets and Clermont Auvergne.

There has been some ambiguity regarding the future of the English Clubs in the Heineken Cup as Premier Rugby has given a two year’s notice of their hard thought intention to withdraw from Amlin Cup and Heineken Cup as they are concerned by the qualification process and by the over all format of the tournaments.

Harlequins on the other hand started off their pres season campaign badly after they lost 31-15 to Castres Olympique. They did put up a great fight but were bettered by their French counterpart. Nine of Harlequins’ EPS players did not play the game and hence this weakened the team greatly.  Hence a lot of young players got a chance to showcase their talent and prove their worth against a good side. Hence all in all it was an encouraging performance for Harlequins as they learnt a lot and also gained from this match. Playing against a full strength team like Castres was never going to be an easy task but they have time to learn form their mistakes and work on them before the season kicks off.