Mac's End of Season Review - part 3

After the disappointment of being knocked out of the Challenge Cup, attentions returned to the Super League and first up during the busy Easter period was Catalans at home, unusually on a Thursday evening.

“I like evening games and think a Friday night fixtures at the Stoop would be very interesting. Of course there are some issues with travel in London, but it would be interesting to see how it would work.”

The French visitors pipped Quins to the points that night, despite a very spirited – and tense – comeback.

“It was a game that we were disappointed to lose, but didn’t start to panic; looking back at it, the majority of the performance was ok.”

Up next were a side still waiting to record their first Super League victory, Celtic Crusaders.

“We had an insight to Celtic as we’d played them in a friendly in 2008 and been beaten by them.

“During that friendly there were moments when our senior players were a bit shocked. However despite losing, we didn’t leave Wales believing that we were poor; Celtic were well coached and had some very good players.

“This year we went to the Brewery Field knowing that regardless of what was going on in Super League, we had already been beaten by them so we were on our guard. We put in a very professional performance and Celtic didn’t look like doing anything that day.”

“Then Hull KR came to the Stoop, and that was probably the first game of the year where we didn’t seem to be at the races.

“There were some individual performances that, if I’m brutally frank, let down the team and so it was the first time I had to look at individual issues rather than what we were doing together as a team.“

Whatever was addressed certainly worked when Quins travelled to Headingley to play Leeds on the following Friday evening.

“As far as examples of unity in sport go – 17 men all working together – I don’t think I’ve seen a better example during my time as a coach than in our game at Leeds. It wasn’t a freakish performance that saw us put 60 points over them, but we hammered a weakness of theirs and kept doing it.”

“The following week we had Salford again, this time at the Magic Weekend. We had to dig in but still came up with a win. To back up the Leeds result with a win the following week was almost as important as Leeds itself.”

And what did Mac think of the Magic Weekend concept as a whole?

“Since 1895, rugby league has always been trying new things and experimenting with law changes. I’m very proud of the innovation of rugby league people and to take a whole weekend of fixtures to Edinburgh is great. There’s a finals atmosphere to the weekend and it’s great to play in front of a big crowd.

“Next was Wakefield at home which was a bit of a scrappy game, but we got the points and went to St Helens with smiles on our faces in training having won our last three.

“We knew Saints would be a big ask. At half time I verbally kicked a few ice buckets around and it wasn’t until the three quarter mark that we started to look like the team we could be. We could have got a result up until the final few minutes; though I remember Sean Long’s kicking game was outstanding that night and asked a lot of our defence.”

The following weekend Quins played Celtic again; what does Mac think about their first year in Super League?

“Celtic have added to the competition this year and I hope their fans are patient and see this through. I know they’ll be disappointed they’ve lost so many games, but that’s against teams who have been in Super League a long time.

“Of course Celtic would struggle this year, every new team that steps up does and that’s the reality. Wales is a huge rugby nation and I think they’re more accepting of league than maybe some other parts of the UK. It’ll take hard work and investment, but if they have that I can’t see why it wouldn’t work.”

Whilst Quins completed the double over Celtic, it was also the match in which Luke Dorn fractured his fibula and further injuries were just around the corner.

In the next part of Mac’s End of Season Review; a fantastic victory over Hull KR is marred by news of a serious injury to captain Rob Purdham.

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