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Even by the 5s standards the first 10 minutes of this match were a disaster as fellow Forster Cup semi-finalists Banbridge scored 21 points without reply. The next 70 minutes were spent trying to claw our way back into the game. The day started well with certain players, such as Marcus and Cooper, actually arriving before 2pm. This led to Marcus having his weekly nomination for Dick-of-the-Day almost withrawn. Thankfully though, Coops stepped into the breach and more than earned the award with his on field antics. More of that latter.

Although the match was already over before Quins started to play any sort of rugby, credit must be given to the 15 lads for not lying down and letting Banbridge win by a cricket score, which is how it looked early on.

All in all not much else can be said about the game. The pack were too easily bullied and allowed ‘bridge to kill the ball time and again. One thing that must surely be looked at however, is this new scrummaging farce which was clearly thought up by those bright sparks at HQ over 3 or 4 bottles of port on a cold winters night whilst watching Ulster videos featuring "Big Joe" (the big lad brought in to bolster Ulster’s scrum who had never scrummaged in his life before). What I’m trying to say is that being allowed to push the opposition scrum 1.5 metres is absolutely ridiculous; Quins put Banbridge’s scrum under real pressure all day but found that because of this silly old farts rule it (a) didn’t matter one bit on their ball and (b) allowed their scrum-half to disrupt every single scrum Quins won unhindered. Sort it out chaps! The lineout also malfunctioned to some extent with Banbridge probably just shading the exchanges and successfully disrupting Quins ball at both 2 and 4.

In the backs (although as usual they blamed bad ball from the forwards) there seemed to be an inability to catch the ball or pass it to the man standing outside. The defence at least tightened up and after Banbridge went 3 converted tries up they never really looked like scoring again (were they even trying at this stage?).

Quins tries came from a Barney Leitch (or was it Gordon Darcy) mazy run from inside Quins half when with all the support in the world he decided to go himself and scored under the posts. The second try came in the last minute of the game from a lineout and driving maul with 3 players claiming it (one of whom was Pat and possibly Stevie U and Jamesy or Marco). From the resulting kick off it was decided to run it straight back down field however an easy catch was dropped by Eddie and it was game over.

Man-of-the-Match went without any debate whatsoever to Barney again, who not only looked the most dangerous with the ball in hand but tackled like a demon and kept Quins hopes alive until the end. He is surely in line for player of the season.

Another candidate for player of the season won the coveted Dick-of-the-Day award having had one of his quieter days. No one has ever looked more surprised at getting the ball passed to him from a free- kick than Coops did and the resulting kick (outside the 22) in his words just drifted out but in reality looked like it was going to pass straight over the next pitch and land in the river. The award was cemented when a Banbridge clearance kick caught Coops completely off guard (and in the face) much to everyone’s amusement. Apparently on this occasion he was "sizing the man up to put in a tackle". The fact that the "man" was still 10 yards away was "irrelevant" apparently.

Team: 1. M McCartney, 2. S Uprichard, 3. J Graham, 4. P Stewart, 5. R Cooper, 6. E Wilson, 7. S Weatherup, 8. P Cole, 9. B Turkington, 10. A Blythe, 11. A Mills, 12. A Leitch, 13. R Calvert (Capt), 14. A McCulloch, 14. M Cummings.

Man-of-the-Match: Andrew Leitch

Dick-of-the-Day: Richard Cooper

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