View From The 22

The board is mis behaving again, painfully slow, so this probably old news.
Starting XV:

15. Tom O’Flaherty, 14. Tom Roebuck, 13. Rob du Preez, 12. Rekeiti Ma’asi-White, 11. Arron Reed, 10. George Ford, 9. Gus Warr; 1. Ralph McEachran, 2. Alfie Longstaff, 3. Asher Opoku-Fordjour, 4. Ernst van Rhyn ©, 5. Ben Bamber, 6. Jacques Vermeulen, 7. Tristan Woodman, 8. Sam Dugdale.

Replacements:

16. Ethan Caine, 17. Tumy Onasanya, 18. James Harper, 19. Hyron Andrews, 20. Seb Kelly, 21. Dom Hanson, 22. Marius Louw, 23. Ollie Davies.

The Tom Curry tease seems to be just that as no sign of him.
Side is not a lot stronger than last week, despite the rumours.

The site really is slow...

A bit like the blind playing the visually impaired this one.

I'm sure the side will show a more collective 'effort' that last week...which I happened to be at but missing this one which is round the corner from where I live for the Leige bike race

I didn't bother making the point after last week's debacle but this side on the backs seems similar so will bother with the comment.

Our attack last week was really poor....just one off runners straight into contact with no offloads. Warr/Ford are easy to line up so ball carriers get the ball with a defender straight in their face. To be honest this is also a huge concern we'll face next season as I'm not seeing many game changers. We desperately miss the spark of Quirke despite TOF's best efforts but he does tend to run sideways a fair bit........Really would like to see Hansen start and would have rested Ford and let Rob DP play 10 who gets the backline quicker and more varied ball and get Louwe on the pitch.

15. Jamie Benson (38)

14. Cameron Anderson (30)

13. Luke Northmore (98)

12. Bryn Bradley (29)

11. Hayden Hyde (18)

10. Marcus Smith (192)

9. Lucas Friday (16)


1. Will Hobson (33)

2. George Turner (11)

3. Joe Jones (4)

4. Chandler Cunningham-South (46)

5. Joe Launchbury (50)

6. Guido Petti Pagadizábal (15)

7. Jack Kenningham (93)

8. Alex Dombrandt © (173)

IMPACT PLAYERS:

16. Sam Riley (78)

17. Ethan Clarke (4)

18. Ollie Streeter (10)

19. Kieran Treadwell (26)

20. Zach Carr (29)

21. Will Evans (128)

22. Jack Grant (2)

23. Sean Kerr (18)

TOF shouldn't be playing 15, especially when O.Davies is in the side - he was our best player last week but it doesn't mean he's any better at 15 now

Wish we'd have given Logan a run at 8, don't understand why we're using him so little

Coaches finally seen the light on Caine?



Don't really care about the result - I'm guessing we're gonna lose, I just hope we show an ounce of fight in the game

TOF may be playing for a contract, who knows, so makes sense he plays. We need some experience in the team rather than just playing kids. I like the balance, bar the fact that we are still pretending Warr is prem standard 9! Davies isn't a 15 either, he'd never played there until we shoe horned him in last season. Caine has done ok, aside from the darts, but our lineout issues have been a problem since Webber retired so I am reluctant to pin that on Caine.

Re attack, Warr doesn't pick up and run, and has no running game so it becomes predictable. Same with Ford really, can't have 2 half backs with no pace and running game in the modern era. Against Sarries we were deliberately, it seems, getting the ball into RDP and Louw's hands as quickly as possible and trying to play off them. It was at least a tactic, albeit a disaster!!
Lets see what tomorrow brings.

Harlequins v Sale Sharks
Referee: George Selwood (2nd game)
ARs: Craig Maxwell-Keys & Jonathan Healy
TMO: David Rose

We are favourites!!!!

To win
Quins 11/10
Draw 22/1
Sale 13/15

Looking at the team selection for today, there is going to be a big change next year.
If I was selecting a 23 from all available for next year, I can't see 10 names in todays teamsheet
that would be in contention for my selection. I pray that those coming in will really make
a positive change ( at least for a season or two ).

26-24 after 50 mins and a game that you might have expected given both teams' positions.

Seen enough of Longstaff to tell me he's ahead of Caine. Taken his chance well!

Centre partnership has been abysmal, both look very leggy.

Still giving up tries far too easily once teams get near our 22...a real issue.

FT score for Roy
Quins 33 } Sale 52

ejndavid95 wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 25, 2026 4:22 pm

26-24 after 50 mins and a game that you might have expected given both teams' positions.

Seen enough of Longstaff to tell me he's ahead of Caine. Taken his chance well!

Centre partnership has been abysmal, both look very leggy.

Still giving up tries far too easily once teams get near our 22...a real issue.

Agree, I thought Alfie Longstaff played very well

I should be happy with the result, but I'm not. I felt that we made hard work of it, against a pretty poor team.

Maybe it's just knowing that all these games are pointless is what's doing it. Perhaps with the players we have left, we can't change style, it's just a case of treading water until next season.

If they "tread water" at Castle Grim they'll get melted on the plastic.

Definitely looked like an end of season game between two sides with nothing to play for - defences completely optional, us finishing stronger (figuratively and literally - our tight/power game was the difference towards the end)


Good to see Longstaff take the opportunity with both hands - solid performance
Also good to see Seb Kelly make his debut - is that 5 prem debuts in the last two games?

Disappointing that Hanson didn't get on, even when we were up by over a score with 10mins left


Very sad to see RdP go off injured for what is likely to be his last game in a Sale shirt - looked like a bad hamstring injury, not one that's going to heal up in a few weeks

Olyy wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 27, 2026 10:23 am

Disappointing that Hanson didn't get on, even when we were up by over a score with 10mins left

He replaced Louw in the 75th minute and went on to the wing.

Watching the highlights video I couldn't recognise who was playing 16 in the last ten minutes as it definitely wasn't Caine -the 16 had hair.
Apparently - thanks to Rugby Pass - it was Wills (sic) Austin who has been on loan to the Dragons.

Only just managed to get back on the forum after over a week of lacking connection to it...
Yes the young hooker did well with only one missed line out I think. Indeed a lot of the young players seemed to stand out for me. AOF was the eldest on the front row at 22! Hard to judge the performance against another team clearly misfiring too, but should help build confidence going into the last 4 games. Bamber the stand out player for me though...some fine defending as always but also some great no look passes out of the tackle