Harlequins take their first title in epic final

Harlequins 30 Leicester 23:AFTER YEARS of a duopoly, English rugby has its second new champion in as many years. Harlequins won their first Premiership title, by seeing off one of the aforementioned duopoly, Leicester, in a riveting contest at Twickenham.

It had seemed they were romping to it, having dominated the first 65 minutes almost without break. But as the weather took its toll, not to mention the prospect of an unprecedented glory, they conceded 10 points in four minutes to set up the mandatory nail-biter. But they held on to win what was an epic – the third consecutive such final we have had, after Saracens victory last year and Leicesters win in 2010, in the days when, along with Wasps, they dominated the competition. Who said a Premiership play-off system had no merit?

The pace of the first half was outrageous, considering the heat. Harlequins, in particular, seemed to be defying their opponents to keep up with the game they were intent on playing. Tapped penalties and 22 drop-outs abounded, and Danny Care’s incessant darting summed up the attitude, as did the proclivity of Chris Robshaw, Nick Easter et al to step in at outhalf and release team-mates with deft offloads.

Quins’ reward was not long in coming, a fine Tom Williams’s try from just such a passage of play opening up an 8-0 lead within 10 minutes. But such a policy is not without its dangers and Leicester always looked capable of pouncing.

Their most decisive intervention was to capitalise on a loose Harlequins lineout from which Dan Cole released Steve Mafi on a 60-metre gallop on the half-hour. George Ford’s conversion opened up a 13-11 lead for the Tigers, but a penalty by Nick Evans just before the break, for which Thomas Waldrom had seen yellow, re-established Quins’ lead at half-time.

Their resurgence did not stop there. The third quarter was entirely dominated by Harlequins, and with a quarter of an hour to go, they were 30-13 ahead, the title surely theirs. But Ben Youngs stepped forward and transformed the dynamic of the match with two lightning breaks in a few minutes. A try for Anthony Allen and a Ford penalty brought Leicester to within seven points with 10 minutes to go. But Quins were not to be denied.

Seven years after they were relegated and three years after they became enmeshed in one of the biggest scandals in the history of English rugby – Bloodgate – Harlequins won the Premiership for the first time by defeating Leicester 30-23 at Twickenham. And they are anticipating more titles.

“We are going places,” said Conor O’Shea, the director of rugby who helped rebuild Harlequins after the club’s reputation had been trashed by the fake blood substitution perpetrated during the 2009 Heineken Cup quarter-final against Leinster.

“Good teams win; great teams kick on. A number of people at the club have been through some tough times, ducking and diving over the last 10 years to get us where we are today. This win can only be a start because we have a long way to go and the players will be back in on 24 June to start preparing for next season.”

Both teams scored two tries and the first of the match came from the Quins wing Tom Williams, who was at the centre of the fake blood substitution and whose changed testimony sparked a rash of resignations at the club and hefty bans at a disciplinary hearing.

“Tom is a class act and I tried to sign him when I was at London Irish,” said O’Shea. “We were determined a couple of years go to write a new chapter for Harlequins and we are doing that. We will enjoy tonight but we want to be a great club and there is work to do.

Quins finished at the top of the table at the end of the regular season, having been out in front from the middle of September. “People said then that we were only in that position because of the World Cup,” said the Quins and England captain, Chris Robshaw, who was named man of the match. “We have finished on top and we proved those who wrote us off wrong.”

It was Leicester’s eighth successive Premiership final and their fifth defeat. “We made too many mistakes,” said their director of rugby, Richard Cockerill, who added that the England outside-half Toby Flood, who withdrew on Saturday morning with a groin strain, would be fit to tour South Africa with England.

HARLEQUINS: Brown; Williams, Lowe, Turner-Hall, Monye; Evans, Care; Marler, Gray, Johnston, Kohn, Robson, Faasavalu, Robshaw, Easter. Replacements: Buchanan, Lambert, Collier, Vallejos, Guest, Dickson, Clegg, Hopper.

LEICESTER: Murphy; Agulla, M Tuilagi, Allen, A Tuilagi; Ford, B Youngs; Ayerza, Chuter, Cole, Skivington, Parling, Mafi, Salvi, Waldrom. Replacements: T Youngs, Mulipola, Castrogiovanni, Kitchener, Newby, Harrison, Hamilton, Twelvetrees.

Referee: Wayne Barnes (RFU).