Farmer Rob’s ready for big shift against Quins abrasive pack
HE’S ploughed the fields and now Rob Vickers is ready to help scatter the Harlequins front row.
Newcastle’s longestserving first team player spent his day off on Thursday doing chores on the family farm, where, as it happens, Quins boss John Kingston used to muck around as a kid.
“He grew up on a farm very near ours – just outside Durham – and he knows my father-in-law very well,” Vickers told
The Rugby Paper. “I love life on the farm and I get stuck in and do my bit whenever I can. This week, I spent my day off ploughing.
Now Vickers is ready to muck in as the Falcons try and build on last week’s last-gasp 22-16 win at 14man Northampton.
“For us it is about playing well at home now and putting in a good performance for our home fans and showing them what we are all about. I don’t think we did that in our last home game against Exeter when we had a really big crowd in.
“Harlequins’ set piece has been going very well this year and their scrum is very abrasive and they’ve got some very quick and nippy backs.
“As forwards, we need to impose our game upon them and give our backs a chance to get some one-on- ones and do their stuff. If we do that we’ll have a chance.”
The Yorkshireman added: “If we can stick to the game plan that the coaches give us for the whole 80 minutes, that’ll give us a good chance of winning.
“We’ve been in the fight for most of the games this season but if you look at the Bath (5-58) and Exeter (19-32) games, where we went off script, there were lots of things we did that conspired to our own downfall.”
Vickers turned 35 on Friday and this season, his 11th as a Falcon, could be his last as he is out of contract at the end of the season.
But while Vickers continues to get regular game time and feels as fit as he does now, any thoughts of retirement are on hold.
“I take it a game at a time. I feel really good at the moment and I’m in good shape,” he said.
“But you never know what is around the corner. I’ve done my coaching badges and before I went into rugby I was a full-time conditioning coach. I also got a Masters at Durham so I’ve got quite a bit of scope to try different things.
“I’ll have a sit down with boss and see what he thinks and then we’ll go from there.”