Harlequins RL 22-26 Salford City Reds

Sunday 14th March 2010

Salford battle back for victory

Steven Tyrer bagged a hat-trick as Salford moved off the foot of Super League with a 26-22 comeback win at struggling Harlequins.

The Reds sent the Londoners to the bottom of the pile with a deserved first win of the season, erasing a 18-4 deficit to run out worthy winners.

The hosts started the brighter of the two sides, completing consecutive sets in the Salford half without truly troubling the Reds line.

But their lack of cutting edge was exposed after 10 minutes when the visitors took the lead in their first visit to Quins territory.

Full-back Karl Fitzpatrick came into the line, opened up space for himself with a neat dummy and darted over in the corner.

With both sides opting for safety-first tactics and playing for field position there was precious little to quicken the pulse of a sparse Stoop crowd - a spectacle befitting the teams' awful starts to the campaign.

Danny Orr was the man pulling the strings for Quins, and his jinking run on 25 minutes freed David Howell, whose clever grubber just eluded Will Sharp.

Suddenly the home side were on the front foot, but excellent goal-line defence from Salford repelled a wave of attacks.

The Londoners were aiming for the corners, but Reds wingers Jodie Broughton and Ste Tyrer were more than equal to the task.

Quins suffered more injury woe on 29 minutes when forward Jason Golden was stretchered off after taking a Daniel Holdsworth kick full in the face.

The hosts maintained the tempo though, and the pressure finally told on the half when Orr wriggled through a gap at the play the ball to touch down. Orr converted to give the hosts the lead.

Minutes later that advantage was increased as Quins cashed in on a howler from Salford winger Tyrer.

Tyrer misjudged a Chad Randall kick, allowing the hosts to regather possession and Karl Temata crashed over.

Jeremy Smith was then sin-binned for a late hit on Orr as the Reds lost some of their composure.

Quins failed to make the most of their numerical advantage, but struck almost instantly after Smith returned to the field on 50 minutes.

Luke Williamson offloaded to Oliver Wilkes and although the former Wakefield man was held just short, Lamont Bryan was on hand to crash over.

Back came the Reds, and Fitzpatrick's lofted pass allowed Tyrer to dive over in the corner.

Salford had their tails up and only fantastic tackles from both Ben Jones-Bishop and Orr prevented further Reds tries.

But the visitors were to close to within two points on the hour mark when Tyrer helped himself to his second try after some slick passing from the Salford backs.

The Reds were now running Quins ragged and they took a deserved lead with five minutes remaining when Broughton finished off a flowing move by scorching over in the corner.

Tyrer was then to complete his hat-trick, leaving Jones-Bishop's late score nothing more than a consolation.