Harlequins bounce back to see off Treviso at The Stoop
ADAM Jones warned Leicester Tigers his Quins pack will not be a “soft touch” after they came out on top in an arm-wrestle with Benetton.
The Quins’ forwards coach was delighted with the grit and guile shown by his big men in tough conditions with the freezing cold and driving rain failing to stop them getting their European campaign back on track.
Quins climbed to the top of a tightly-packed Pool 5 having gone into a mustwin contest with their Italian rivals at the foot of the table after last week’s defeat in Treviso.
Tries from Lewis Boyce and Joe Marchant earned their second win in the Challenge Cup campaign and gives them a point lead ahead of Benetton.
They return to Premiership action at Tigers on Saturday and former Wales front row hero Jones insisted: “This is a good win to take us into the Leicester game.
“It doesn’t get much bigger than going to Welford Road in the Premiership. They are having their issues at the moment, like a lot of clubs, so we need to get ourselves right to go up and perform there.
“Tigers will have their traditional Tuesday session of kicking the hell out of each other and will be ready to go when we get there. This club sometimes gets tarred with a soft brush and we have to go up there and match them physically and really stamp ourselves on them.”
Jones was pleased to finish this block of European games with a win and hailed the impact of his forwards.
He added: “This win sets up a pretty interesting end to the pool stage. It’s been a funny old campaign so far with two wins and two losses but if we win the final two games next month we will go through. We want to win any competition we are in.
“The game management from the lads was excellent throughout and we played in the right areas in the second half. There were a lot of set pieces and maul- ing, and it was tough. But that’s what the big heavy boys get paid for.”
Three-time winners Quins marched into a 17-9 half-time lead courtesy of two first-half tries from prop Boyce and centre Marchant. Sadly, the uneventful second half was surely forgotten by the time the 6,000-plus fans had returned home.
Boyce ploughed his way
over for the opening try from close range after strong pressure on the Benetton line, and James Lang kicked the extras.
Bespectacled Irish flyhalf Ian McKinley reduced the gap to a single point with two penalties in front of the sticks. But the visitors were the victims of their own over-eagerness to keep the game flowing in the 25th minutes when Monty Ioane was tackled as he sat up and tried to offload the ball to a team-mate.
It backfired as an alert Marchant nipped through for the interception and ran all the way with his gift-wrapped package for Quins’ second try also converted by Lang.
McKinley kicked a third penalty before Marchant had a try ruled out for a knock on by Saili whose juggling act merely passed the ball forward to his fellow centre. Lang turned down the kickable penalty but opted for the points the next time a chance came along on the stroke of halftime.
McKinley missed his first penalty after Saili went offside and the increasing driving rain stopped both sides from really putting together many flowing attacking moves in the second half with a slippery ball making it a stop-start, messy affair with points at a premium.
Replacement fly-half Marcus Smith increased the hosts lead to 20-9 with a penalty after Benetton did not roll away at a ruck and the visitors failed to add to their score in the second half.