Neil Back dismissed the suggestion that Leeds should be praised for a stirring second-half fightback that gave Harlequins a real fright, reflecting instead that his team had squandered a glorious chance to dump Bath to the bottom of the Premiership table.
"Our first-half performance, and conceding three soft tries, has killed us basically," said Back. Chris Robshaw scored two of them, prompting the Harlequins coach, John Kingston, to press the England claims of the 23-year-old flanker. The centre George Lowe added the third - his third in two matches - courtesy of a bad mistake from the Leeds full-back Leigh Hinton.
Nick Evans converted all three and, when he kicked a second penalty early in the second half, Quins led 27-13 and looked set for a victory worth five points that would have lifted them above Wasps to fifth in the table. Instead they relaxed, allowing Leeds to gain a foothold back in the game when Kearnan Myall surged over from close range, and the remaining half-hour turned into a real dogfight.
Evans kicked what turned out to be the match-winning penalty in the 53rd minute after Leeds' Fijian veteran Seru Rabeni had been caught in possession. That gave Quins a 30-20 lead but Leeds quickly cut the deficit to three points with their third try as the replacement Tom Denton was driven over from a lineout, the 19-year-old fly-half Joe Ford adding the best of his three conversions. That score seemed to concentrate Quins' minds and they resisted a late onslaught.
"We made it hard for ourselves, didn't we?" said Kingston. "At half-time the challenge was to go on and win the game really well but frankly we weren't good enough and got ourselves into an arm wrestle."
Leeds: Hinton; Welding, Rabeni, Barrow (Hepworth 28), Blackett; Ford, Gomarsall (Mathie, 53); Hardy (MacDonald 51), Ma'asi (Nilsen, 51), Gomez (McGee 56), Lund, Wentzel (capt), Myall, Clark, Oakley (Denton, 51).
Tries Welding, Myall, Denton. Cons Ford 3. Pens: Ford 2
Harlequins Williams; Strettle, Lowe, Tiesi, Mordt; Evans, Care; Jones, Fuga (Brooker, 66), Andress (Lambert, 57), Percival (Stevenson, 66), Robson, Guest (Skinner, 57), Robshaw, Easter (capt). Tries: Robshaw 2, Lowe. Cons: Evans 3. Pens: Evans 3
Referee S Davey (Northumberland). Attendance 5,090.
