Wasps 40 - 42 Harlequins: Champions’ fightback almost beyond belief

Harlequins showed the resolve of champions as they staged a sensational fightback to open the defence of their Aviva Premiership title with a scarcely believable victory over Wasps.

Man of the match Nick Evans, pictured, scored 22 points to lead Harlequins on one of the great Premiership comebacks. The reigning champions scored four tries and 29 unanswered points in the final quarter of a compelling match.

It took just three minutes for Wasps to fashion the first opening as Tom Varndell released the electric-paced Christian Wade to round Mike Brown and score.

Nick Robinson converted two penalties to extend the lead before the wing twins of Wade and Varndell combined again. Hugo Southwell ran on to Elliot Daly’s flat pass and released Wade, who again scorched past Brown and over the try-line, only to inexplicably pass to Varndell who touched down and Robinson converted to open that 20-0 lead.

The champions responded with a quick tap from Danny Care and Tom Williams collected Chris Robshaw’s offload to score under the posts.

After a third Robinson penalty, Jonathan Poff forced the turnover and Wade produced an exceptional finish to score his second try.

Evans reduced the arrears with two more penalties before Varndell streaked away on the stroke of half-time for what looked like Wasps’ bonus-point try.

But the celebrations were cut short when the try was disallowed.

Seven minutes into the second half, Varndell flicked the ball in-field for Wentzel to gallop over from the 22-metre line. Marco Wentzel then turned provider, exchanging deft passes with Tim Payne for the loose-head prop to crash over the line. Wasps led 40-13.

With the game seemingly gone, Harlequins exploited some weak Wasps tackling to stage their late rally. Tom Guest came off the bench to score with his first touch before Brown showed some excellent hands to take a quick pass from Evans and dive over.

When Evans picked out Brown with a raking cross-field kick, the England full-back scored Harlequins’ fourth try - but they were not finished.

Brown squeezed an offload to Guest and Evans took advantage of more poor defence to wriggle through and touch down for Harlequins’ fifth try. The conversion took Harlequins to within a point and Evans rounded off a remarkable comeback with his penalty four minutes from time.