Irish recruitment drive starts to bear fruit as Rona sees off Quins
Harlequins’ hopes of reaching the top four came crashing down as the curse of London Irish struck again.
Just under two years ago, Irish humbled the home side 35-5.
And, on a day when Storm Dennis tried its best to wreck the London derby, it was a New Zealand-born Australian international who was key to the Exiles’ four-try, bonus point victory.
Centre Curtis Rona scored two tries and made another and assistant coach George Skivington said: “We worked hard on recruitment. Adam [Coleman], from the forwards point of view, has added value and Curtis was great with his work rate and pressure and he gets tries off the back of it. We said you need to come in and earn the right to play and they have earned that respect and are delivering.”
But Paul Gustard, the head of rugby at Harlequins, bemoaned: “They capitalised on two poor pieces of defence and got 14 points. We dominated territory in the second half but could not get over the line.”
Irish’s handling was all over the place in the build-up to flanker Matt Rogerson’s try.
And when the ball found its way to Rona, his neat pass saw the back row rumble over, with fly-half Stephen Myler converting.
Quins fly-half Marcus Smith booted a 10-metre penalty – any further would have been almost impossible to have gone for goal with the wind in his face – to put points on the board.
But Irish, who needed to get as many points as they could with the strong wind at their backs, added another cracking touchdown when scrum-half Ben Meehan zipped through a gap 30 metres out.
Rona was on his left and a pass to the centre 20 metres out saw the three-times capped Australian roar under the posts, making Myler’s conversion simple.
Yet Quins should have been on the board when No 8 Alex Dombrandt gave England coach Eddie Jones further reason why he should be considered for a second successive match against the Irish next week, this time over the road at Twickenham.
He cut a terrific line through the Irish midfield to set-up full-back Aaron Morris to touchdown, only for television match official Sean Davey to rule it out for blocking.
Myler landed a long-range penalty before the break but, with the wind in their favour, Quins fought back as, inspired by England scrum-half Danny Care on as a replacement, they grabbed a try that their pressure deserved.
Care took a quick tap penalty inside the Irish 22 and gave it to the burly Dombrandt. He crashed through the away defence from 10 metres to touch down, with Smith converting.
The hammer blow came with Rona’s second touchdown just after the hour when Brett Herron fielded a kick to his 22 and attempted to clear it upfield only for Rona to charge the ball down and pounce as it crossed the try line.
Myler converted and, despite a late try when Aaron Morris fed Dombrandt on the left who then put centre Cadan Murley in at the corner, the Irish had the last say of the match. Replacement Ollie Hoskins went over for a try from a maul in the corner in the final minute to give Irish a bonus point.