Saturday, May 12, 2012

Harlequins 25-23 Northampton

Harlequins booked a spot of their first Premiership final with a narrow win over Northampton in a good play-off semi-final on the Stoop.

Ryan Lamb kicked Saints to a slender half-time lead with four penalties in answer to Nick Evanss three.

The sport remained deadlocked as both fly-halves exchanged three-pointers.

Lee Dicksons try gave Saints an eight-point lead with 10 minutes to move but Joe Marlers try to five more points from Evanss boot sealed the win.

With Chris Ashton a late Saints withdrawal on account of a back injury, Vasily Artemyev was called onto the Saints right wing.

The match pitted brothers Karl and Lee Dickson against one another inside the number nine shirts and it was sibling bristling that resulted in the primary score.

When Lee Dickson prevented his older brother from taking a fast penalty Evans took good thing about the ten metres that were added to fit a second-minute penalty.

Either side looked to provide the ball width early on nonetheless it was a collapsed driving maul from a Saints line-out that gave the visitors their opening as Lamb converted his first penalty from 40 metres.

Evans scuffed a routine shot at goal and the touch judges needed to reconsider Lambs effort from his own half, having initially ruled it out, when the ball drooped over the crossbar.

The scores were levelled again at 6-6 on 18 minutes by Evans and, with Saints line-out providing a fantastic platform, Quins were guilty of collapsing a second maul moments later before Lamb again punished them from the tee.

Northamptons number 10 missed a 48-metre effort and after Maurie Faasavalu put the hosts at the front foot Saints lost number eight Roger Wilson to the sin bin just after the half hour under sustained pressure.

Evans made it 9-9 with the resulting penalty but if Ollie Kohn dawdled at a ruck, Lee Dickson made sure his fly-half had another penalty attempt which sailed throughout the uprights.

Despite being down a person Northampton spread the ball - engineering a promising Paul Diggin break on the death of the primary half.

Two minutes after the break Jordan Turner-Hall thought he had scored from a short five-metre throw in after Ben Foden beat his England full-back rival Mike Brown to a kick to the corner.

But referee Andrew Small called the play back for the reintroduction of the suspended Wilson.

Quins had started the half with a renewed vigour and quick tempo and were rewarded when Evans pulled the scores back even eight minutes into the half.

Saints, shorn of 4 in their regular forwards, were treading water within the scrum and finally crumbled on 50 minutes.

Lamb brought the score to fifteen-15, moments after being at fault seeing his side going behind, when Quins impeded their opposition on the restart.

Paul Doran-Jones replaced Brian Mujati on 55 minutes to take a look at and provides Saints a platform at scrumtime but no sooner did the change happen that Saints were shoved back five metres.

Lamb made it 18-15 after his interception took Saints into Quins 22 but Evans missed the danger to provide his side parity at the hour.

Saints made him pay on 66 minutes when skipper Dickson ended a unprecedented foray into Quins half by crashing over after fine offloading from the East Midlanders.

Lamb missed the extras but Evans took his chance to make it a five-point game at 23-18.

With five minutes to move Quins went for broke with a driving maul and Marler grounded the ball under a sea of bodies and Evans stepped as much as give the hosts a famous victory.

LINE-UPS

Harlequins: Brown; Williams, Lowe, Turner-Hall, S Smith; Evans, Dickson; Marler, Gray, Johnston, Kohn, Robson; Faasavalu, Robshaw (capt), Easter.

Replacements: Buchanan, Lambert, Collier, Vallejos, Guest, Bolt, Clegg, Hopper.

Northampton: Foden; Artemyev, Pisi, Downey, Diggin; Lamb, Dickson (capt); Tonaguiha, Long, Mujati; Sorensen, Day; Craig, Dowson, Wilson.

Replacements: McMillan, Waller, Doran-Jones, Nutley, Harrison, Roberts, Myler, May.



From WhatNewsToday.net

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