Taggart’s try secures victory for Quins!<\/p>\n
Quins had to dig deep for their much-needed first AIL win in a scrappy and edgy clash at a rain-lashed Deramore to end their 3 game losing sequence.<\/p>\n
BELFAST HARLEQUINS 18
\nBLACKROCK COLLEGE 6<\/p>\n
BY MARTIN SAVAGE<\/p>\n
It was a hard slog for the home side who had to battle hard against the dreadful conditions and their own inability to put points on the board before coming out the other side with this valuable two try victory. CLICK HERE for superb pictures even in the conditions<\/p>\n
Indeed, it was only Frank Taggart\u2019s 78th minute try \u2013 which came off a powerful Quins\u2019 maul, an area which they had been dominant all afternoon \u2013 that the game secured for coach Adam Larkin\u2019s men who had struggled to get the scoreboard moving and indeed failed to do so between the end of the first quarter and and the 72nd minute when Liam Cambridge had struck a sweet drop goal.<\/p>\n
Indeed the out half only redeemed himself with his place-kicking in the game\u2019s closing moments when his drop goal and conversion of Taggart\u2019s try \u2013 tagged on to his first half penalty \u2013 allowed him to end with making three kicks from seven attempts in what were, admittedly, less than benign conditions.<\/p>\n
Cambridge had opened the scoring in the third minute with his second penalty attempt to put Quins in front and then was wide again after 12 minutes during an opening spell in which the home side were dominant.
\nIndeed, a strong attack down the right led to Tom Fraser\u2019s 15th minute score when the hooker drove over from close-in but Cambridge missed the extras.<\/p>\n
With the rain now torrential, the game became an error-fest though Dave Godfrey\u2019s first chance to kick points for Blackrock also went wide in the tricky conditions but he made no mistake right on half-time when Quins were punished for scooping a ball back at a ruck.<\/p>\n
Leading 8-3 at the break, and with the weather improving, Quins tried to push on early in the second half but Cambridge missed again from a long range penalty shot after Rock strayed offside from a high kick.
\nThe game then degenerated into a shapeless encounter with both sides seemingly content to kick the ball at each other and hope for to force an error.<\/p>\n
Quins, despite struggling in the scrums, managed to take some territorial control after the hour mark but on two occasions, when their much improved lineout launched attacks through their impressive driving maul, they lost possession and Rock were able to clear.<\/p>\n
But Quins stuck at it and Cambridge\u2019s beautifully struck drop goal on 72 minutes gave them an 11-3 lead which was almost immediately wiped out through Godfrey\u2019s second penalty.<\/p>\n
Still, Quins rolled up their sleeves and another big maul off a lineout saw Taggart touchdown with two minutes of normal time remaining. Cambridge even struck a great conversion and Quins\u2019 first win was finally in the bag.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Taggart’s try secures victory for Quins! Quins had to dig deep for their much-needed first AIL win in a scrappy and edgy clash at a rain-lashed Deramore to end their 3 game losing sequence. BELFAST HARLEQUINS 18 BLACKROCK COLLEGE 6 BY MARTIN SAVAGE It was a hard slog for the home side who had to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[7894,937,7406,4719,17312,6607,4374,4702,3959],"class_list":["post-57477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-belfast-harlequins","tag-7894","tag-belfast","tag-blackrock","tag-club","tag-harlequins","tag-november","tag-pictures","tag-report","tag-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57477"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":632570,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57477\/revisions\/632570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}