Quins battle past Wildcats

Harlequins turned around a half-time deficit to beat Wakefield 34-18 at the Twickenham Stoop on Saturday night.

The Wildcats looked to be on course for an away win when they led 12-10 at the interval, both sides scoring two tries apiece in the first 40 minutes.

The visitors moved even further ahead when Brett Ferres crossed shortly after the break, though from then on the home side dominated proceedings.

Four unanswered tries made sure Brian McDermott's side followed up their shock win away at Hull with a first success this season on home soil.

As well as losing the game, Wakefield also lost Brad Drew, Jason Demetriou and Tony Martin to serious injuries, making it a very unhappy trip to the capital.

Perfect start

It was a disappointing finish for coach John Kear and his players, particularly after they enjoyed the perfect start with an early try from debutant Scott Grix.

Harlequins responded in fine fashion to falling behind, scoring twice in the space of four minutes to surge ahead.

Scott Hill, who was miraculously passed fit to play despite being stretchered off with a neck injury six days earlier at Hull, got the first, which Rob Purdham converted.

However, the Harlequins kicker was off target with his second shot at the posts after Matt Gafa scored his fifth of the season after Chad Randall's outrageous dummy on the last tackle had caught Wakefield cold.

Drew's departure with a suspected broken right arm hurt the Wildcats, though his replacement, Sam Obst, made an immediate impact off the bench when he cantered in under the posts.

Wakefield began the second half just as they had the first, Ferres darting over from dummy-half after Jamie Rooney had been dragged down just short of the line.

Home dominance

Brough's conversion opened up an eight-point gap but from then on Wakefield lost the plot, handing the advantage to their opponents with some elementary errors. They also lost centre Martin to a torn hamstring.

Kevin Henderson's attempt to offload underneath his own sticks allowed Randall to dive on the loose ball for the simplest of scores.

Liam George then helped Harlequins take the lead when he made a mess of Hill's mighty bomb to allow Rikki Sheriffe to open his try account for the campaign.

Purdham converted both to make it 22-18 and when the impressive Henry Paul dummied his way over, Quins were well clear.

They wrapped up the points with 10 minutes to play when Louis McCarthy-Scarsbrook made the most of a fortunate bounce to run in his team's sixth and final try.