McDermott blasts 'dumb' Quins (From Croydon Guardian)

McDermott blasts 'dumb' Quins

3:30pm Monday 17th August 2009

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Brian McDermott has torn into his misfiring stars after Harlequins RL all but blew their Super League play-off hopes at the weekend.

Saturday’s turgid, desperate 26-22 Stoop loss to lowly Salford City Reds proved the nadir of a season that has spiralled out of control in recent times.

The defeat, Quins’ fifth home setback in a row and their eighth defeat in nine games, means the Londoners will probably have to win all three of their remaining games, starting at Hull on Friday night.

And McDermott accepts that is unlikely to happen.

He said: “We will not make the play-offs playing like that, and in a way I am glad if that is what we are producing.

“In fact, the way we are playing at the moment I think the play-offs are the last thing on our minds.

“We had a team out there on Saturday that were good enough to beat Salford, and we should have beaten Salford.

“But there was some truly dumb decision-making out there and that cost us big time.”

Luke Dorn and Chad Randall crossed for first-half scores, with Rob Purdham adding another shortly after the interval.

And when Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook blasted through to give Quins a 22-14 lead with five minutes remaining, a morale-boosting win seemed on the cards.

But a succession of missed tackles and basic errors allowed the Reds to score two late tries - a result that even drew boos from the usually-patient Twickenham crowd.

McDermott added: “There is no quick fix or easy answer.

“We will train hard this week and try to put things right.

“Maybe I am training the boys too hard - everything is full pelt in training and that is obviously not paying off.

“We still have time to turn things around, but not much time.”

Harlequins RL’s final three fixtures: Aug 21 Hull (a), Sep 5 Castleford (h), 13 Warrington (a)

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