HARLEQUINS’ COACHING GROUP HAS MADE THREE CHANGES TO THE STARTING XV THIS WEEK AS THE CLUB TRAVELS TO KINGSHOLM THIS SUNDAY


Hugh Tizard, Marcus Smith and Luke Northmore all return to the starting XV following Quins’ 41-27 win over Northampton at Big Game 13 on Monday. Tizard and Northmore earn starting berths after impressive appearances from the bench at Big Game, with Tizard replacing Club Captain Stephan Lewies, who misses out due to injury this week, in the five jersey.

Number eight Alex Dombrandt leads the side in Lewies' absence.

Smith is restored to the ten jersey after missing out on Big Game following a positive COVID-19 test result last week, but returns to the team after subsequent negative test results.

Harlequins travel to Gloucester looking to secure five consecutive wins against the Cherry and Whites this Sunday and four consecutive wins at Kingsholm Stadium.

Previewing the fixture, Scrum Coach Adam Jones said: “As a Club we’ve obviously gone back to the Quins DNA of old over the last year or so, and Gloucester this weekend have probably done something similar. As a kid, I remember the Mike Teagues and Phil Vickerys of Gloucester. Tough West Country blokes who knew all about forward rugby. It certainly seems Gloucester have gone back a little bit to their DNA.

“Obviously they have a bit of pace in their team as well in the back three, but their maul has been outstanding. Having a second row as their head coach I guess you’ll know your onions in that area. It’s going to be tough, but we’ve got a pretty good maul defence so we’ll challenge them as much as we can.

“It was pretty pleasing to see how well we went at Big Game in the wet weather. I could see some ex-players watching it, commenting on Twitter about how high-skill and fast-paced the game was. And error wise, it wasn’t too bad, considering the weather. I thought that our physicality was brilliant, too. We carried hard and cleaned out well at the breakdown.

“We’re fairly happy with where we are at the moment, but what is probably better is we know we still have room to improve and grow as a team. We’re in the middle of a pretty important run of games, so we’re pretty much fully focused on keeping this momentum going.”

Harlequins Starting XV
1. Joe Marler
2. Jack Walker
3. Will Collier
4. Matt Symons
5. Hugh Tizard
6.  Tom Lawday
7. Jack Kenningham
8. Alex Dombrandt – Captain
9. Danny Care
10. Marcus Smith
11. Joe Marchant
12. Andre Esterhuizen
13. Luke Northmore
14. Louis Lynagh
15. Tyrone Green

Impact Players
16. Jack Musk
17. Santiago Garcia Botta
18. Simon Kerrod
19. Dino Lamb
20. Luke Wallace
21. Lewis Gjaltema
22. Will Edwards
23. Huw Jones

https://www.quins.co.uk/news/quins-name-team-to-travel-to-gloucester/

And Glaws:

Team News

Ruan Ackermann will make his 100th Gloucester Rugby appearance when the Cherry and Whites host Harlequins at Kingsholm on Sunday.

George Skivington has made two changes to the starting line up that beat Bath with Billy Twelvetrees coming in to replace Mark Atkinson at inside centre and Fraser Balmain swapping places with Kirill Gotovtsev who is named on the bench.

Lloyd Evans starts at fullback with fellow Academy graduates Louis Rees-Zammit and Ollie Thorley on the wings. Chris Harris keeps his 13 shirt after scoring a brace against Bath and will have Twelvetrees inside him at 12. Adam Hastings and Ben Meehan continue their halfback partnership.

In the forwards, Val Rapava-Ruskin and Jack Singleton will partner Balmain in the front row with Freddie Clarke and Matias Alemanno in the second row. Jordy Reid, Ruan Ackermann and captain, Lewis Ludlow, make up the backrow.

After an impressive try in the Premiership Cup game against Worcester, Tom Seabrook is named on the bench with Charlie Chapman and Kyle Moyle the other back replacements. Santiago Socino and Jamal Ford-Robinson, Kirill Gotovtsev, Andrew Davidson and Jack Clement cover the forwards.

George Skivington is looking forward to hosting the reigning champions.

“Quins are going really well. They’re the reigning champions and they were really good against Saints at Twickenham. They are an outstanding attacking team and there are a lot of guys in there with flare and they obviously have a good connection amongst the group. We know what a threat they are and we know how hard we are going to have to work. It should be an exciting fixture.”

Tickets for the Harlequins game are available here.

Gloucester Rugby

15. Lloyd Evans *

14. Louis Rees-Zammit *

13. Chris Harris

12. Billy Twelvetrees

11. Ollie Thorley *

10. Adam Hastings

9. Ben Meehan

 

1. Val Rapava-Ruskin

2. Jack Singleton

3. Fraser Balmain

4. Freddie Clarke *

5. Matias Alemanno

6. Jordy Reid

7. Lewis Ludlow (c) *

8. Ruan Ackermann

 

16. Santiago Socino

17. Jamal Ford-Robinson

18. Kirill Gotovtsev

19. Andrew Davidson

20. Jack Clement *

21. Charlie Chapman *

22. Tom Seabrook *

23. Kyle Moyle

*Denotes Academy player or graduate from the Gloucester Rugby Academy

Some interesting match-ups there. I think the Quins pack will have the edge in the scrum, but Gloucester’s lineout and maul are strong. The breakdown could be interesting given how physical the Gloucester back row are.

The back division is an interesting contrast of styles, though man for man I think Quins shade it in most positions. Looks like Marchant might have been picked on the wing to contain LRZ, and it will be interesting to see how Lloyd Evans goes at 15 - isn’t he more usually a fly half?

Glos by 10

I hope for your sake that you’re not backing your predictions up with spread bets, because on the evidence so far you’d have lost a packet.

I wish we were getting injury updates; the coaches seem to have stopped providing them. I appreciate that there is an element of confidentiality to that in relation to the next few weeks' matches, for our opposition, but surely it's also reasonable to keep the supporters informed.   

Some interesting match-ups there. I think the Quins pack will have the edge in the scrum, but Gloucester’s lineout and maul are strong. The breakdown could be interesting given how physical the Gloucester back row are.

The back division is an interesting contrast of styles, though man for man I think Quins shade it in most positions. Looks like Marchant might have been picked on the wing to contain LRZ, and it will be interesting to see how Lloyd Evans goes at 15 - isn’t he more usually a fly half?

Agree with most of this, although I’m a little bit surprised to see Murley drop out of the 23.

Marchant usually does well on the wing though and Northmore is a good player to bring in (even if I generally prefer him as an impact player from the bench).

With Twelvetrees and Harris, their midfield will be very solid defensively but it’s not particularly fast, so I think we might see a lot of Andre at first receiver with Smith trying to move the defence around.

I hate plastic pitches, but at least they limit the impact of conditions a bit and while a fast track definitely suits Thorley and LRZ, it probably suits us a bit better overall.

Forwards have a big job on their hands. Main thing is not to give them a platform to launch the maul in the first place

Yep. We need the forwards to front-up and we need discipline to be good (as it has been for the most part). If we give them the territory, their maul will cause us problems so best to avoid it as much as we can.

Glos by 10

r not Quin

Murley is injured, no?