Warrington Wolves 4-17 Harlequins

Correspondent

Image | www.quins.co.uk
Used with permission

Warrington were booed off the pitch in front of a crowd of 7,818 after a demoralising first ever home defeat to Harlequins at the Halliwell Jones Stadium.

The fans seem to think the excuses are running out for Paul Cullen, with the coach able to pick a virtually full strength side, which failed to deliver.

As has been the case with many Warrington sides over the years, inconsistency is a major problem, and after the hard work done in ending a drop in form at the Millennium Stadium two weeks ago, it seems the Wolves have fallen in to bad habits once again.

Matt Gafa gave the visitors the lead on the quarter mark, before Martin Gleeson levelled things up. A superb last tackle play by Danny Orr created Quins' second try. The former Wigan stand off collected his own grubber kick, unchallenged, before kicking through for Rob Purdham to pounce upon, confirmed by the video ref.

Warrington then seemed to throw the towel in. Just moments later horrific defence from Henry Fa'afili and Stuart Reardon saw Gafa seemingly ground the ball in the in goal area for a try that should never really happened. The Wolves defence got away with it though, the video referee correctly disallowing the try for a knock on.

And then just two minutes after that warning, Julien Rinaldi gave Quins some breathing space to take in to the sheds at half time, 14-4 up.

Poor handling, combined with superb Quins defence, saw Warrington flounder in the second half, and to add insult to injury, Purdham landed a late penalty and drop goal to give the Quins a highly impressive 17-4 win, and elevate them back up the table in what is proving to be an increasingly exciting and wide open play-off race.