Stars might struggle warns Richards
Sun, 30 Nov 2008 20:51
Harlequins chief Dean Richards has warned England players Danny Care, Ugo Monye and Nick Easter they face stiff competition for their places following the 21-14 victory which prevented Bath from returning to the top of the Guinness Premiership.
Veteran former England scrumhalf Andy Gomarsall's superb inside pass opened up the Bath defence for prop Ceri Jones to score the match-winning try and Richards said: "Andy played very well. He pulled it out of the bag.
"Seb Stegmann also played well and Tom Guest is playing better than ever so it's not easy. The guys who are coming back will have to perform because the guys who are there are playing well."
Quins head into back-to-back Heineken Cup clashes against French giants Stade Francais, starting in Paris next Saturday, and director of rugby Richards insisted: "Selection hasn't been made yet."
He added: "I was disappointed in the way we let in their try and we'll look at that and pick out the things we've got to work on. But I was comfortable with the fact that we won against a side that was around the top and playing some good quality rugby. It was an intense battle. It was always one of those games which would come down to the last few minutes."
Steve Meehan, Bath's head coach, said: "Harlequins played some good field rugby but we never gave ourselves the opportunity to force our dominance on the game. We coughed up the ball too often and too early in our attacking play. If we had been able to build on some things we could have come away with the win. I'm not going to blame players for the effort they put in - I thought the effort was fantastic right through to the 80 minutes - but there were some confusing decisions out there."
Centre Jordan Turner-Hall and Welsh prop Jones struck the crucial blows after No.8 Daniel Browne broke the deadlock with the opening try for Bath in the 50th minute.
With thanks to www.guinnesspremiership.com
