Round 14: Warrington Wolves vs Harlequins

17 Harlequins defeat Warrington 4

Warrington (4) 4
Tries: Gleeson

defeat

Harlequins RL (14) 17
Tries: Gafa, Purdham, Rinaldi
Goals: Purdham (2)
Drops: Sykes

Harlequins strengthened their Super League play-off hopes with a first-ever win over Warrington at the Halliwell Jones Stadium on Saturday.

First-half tries from Matt Gafa, Rob Purdham and Julien Rinaldi gave Quins their fourth away win of the season.

Warrington also scored through Martin Gleeson before the break and dominated afterwards but Quins' defence held out.

Paul Sykes added a late drop to Quins captain Purdham's two goals to hand Wolves a fifth defeat in six matches.

Warrington were also handed a disciplinary worry over Great Britain forward Adrian Morley, who was put on report for a high tackle on hooker Rinaldi midway through the second half.

Quins opened the scoring on 18 minutes when stand-off Mark McLinden handed off Lee Briers to send winger Gafa over.

Warrington hit back immediately when second rower Ben Westwood broke free to give Gleeson a clear run to the line.

The two captains, Purdham and Briers, both failed with their conversions but Purdham scored the next try after scrum-half Danny Orr hacked through.

Soon, Quins had a similar effort disallowed when Graf just failed to touch down another Orr kick.

But the Londoners stretched their lead two minutes before the interval when substitute Rinaldi broke from acting half-back and dummied his way past full-back Stuart Reardon for his side's third try and a 14-4 half-time lead.

Warrington came out reinvigorated after the break but their handling let them down in the face of some staunch Quins defending.

Harlequins went closest to breaking the second-half deadlock but hooker Chad Randsall dropped Tyrone Smith's pass with the line beckoning.

Purdham finally sealed the win with a 75th-minute penalty and centre Sykes added a drop goal for good measure.

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Harlequins coach Brian McDermott
"It was probably our bravest performance of the season. We scrambled and chased back like you've never seen.

"It was not pretty defence at times but it was effective. It was backs-to-the-wall stuff.

"Joe Walsh has been a godsend to us and Luke Burgess is really enjoying it with us. They were pretty big for us tonight."

Warrington coach Paul Cullen
"We are very disappointed we couldn't deliver. We were very ordinary. I didn't think we worked hard enough to try and break through and push Harlequins back at all and ultimately paid the price.

"We were very flat. We couldn't find sufficient energy to get from one end of the field and come up with a kicking game that was going to put some pressure on Harlequins.

"We sent them all the wrong signals very early and they got a smell and a sniff that we weren't quite right. It's very difficult to take."

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Warrington: Reardon, Fa'afili, M. Gleeson, Johnson, Grose, Briers, Anderson, Rauhihi, Clarke, Leikvoll, Westwood, Morley, Wainwright.
Replacements: M. Gleeson, Parker, Wood, Harrison.

Harlequins RL: Melling, Gafa, Sykes, T. Smith, Clubb, McLinden, Orr, Temata, Randall, Heckenberg, Purdham, Hopkins, Walsh.
Replacements: Rinaldi, Mills, Grayshon, Burgess.

Referee: Ben Thaler (Wakefield)