Quins stun reigning champions

12 April 2012

St Helens slumped to a shock 14-6 engage Super League home defeat at the hands of Harlequins at a freezing Knowsley Road.

The reigning champions created next to nothing and, with Scott Hill and Danny Orr dovetailing superbly at half-back on their Harlequins debuts, the visitors outscored Saints by three tries to one.

Orr claimed a long-range interception try early on and although Matt Gidley soon crossed for Saints, second-half scores by Lee Hopkins and Jon Wells sent the Londoners back to the capital with a memorable success.

The match was only deemed playable after pitch inspections at 10.30am and 4pm - and snow continued to fall throughout. Yet the conditions seemed to suit Brian McDermott's men, who sprang a surprise by opening the scoring in the eighth minute after capitalising on a mistake from James Roby.

The score emanated from Saints' first meaningful attack of the game as Keiron Cunningham and Sean Long combined to find Roby on halfway. The young forward attempted to keep the move going but succeeded only in throwing a misplaced pass into Orr's midriff.

The former Wigan stand-off showed a clean pair of heels to race 40 metres and cross the line at the Dunriding Lane end.

The score stunned Saints but a clever kick from Long laid the platform for an attack which saw Leon Pryce provide a perfect offload to the onrushing Gidley to crash over the whitewash.

The visitoprs soon extended their lead when Long's attempted grubber kick was collected by Quins full-back Chris Melling who raced from inside his own half to race deep into Saints territory. Ian Hardman and Francis Meli combined to halt Melling's process but Quins swiftly moved the ball out wide to Hopkins to burrow over in the left corner.

St Helens struggled to create noteworthy try-scoring opportunities but Long sent over a routine penalty on the stroke of half-time after Julien Rinaldi was sent to the sin-bin.

And Quins effectively sealed victory on the hour mark when Wells grounded in the left corner before punching the air in delight. The scene was set for a predictable onslaught by St Helens, but once again Quins held firm as the reigning champions began their home campaign in the worst possible fashion.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in