Evans angered by Quins defeat

Mark Evans could not hide his anger after his Harlequins side lost 13-9 at Bristol.  

The Tetley's Bitter Cup finalists have now lost nine of their last 10 Premiership starts.

A win would have taken Quins way clear of bottom club Rotherham but they are still not yet clear of relegation.

"I thought we had the chance to bury the league in terms of relegation today, but we blew it," said chief executive Evans.

"We should have won the game easily, but we brought the pressure on to ourselves through a succession of errors, and you just cannot do that in this division.

"We didn't play well from start to finish. I didn't think Bristol were much cop either, but they did enough."

Bristol's Scotland A prop Paul Johnstone scored the only try of a forgettable encounter, touching down after 15 minutes, and there was precious little else for a 4,600 crowd to get excited about.

Bristol's victory moved them two places up the table into seventh, but coach Dean Ryan could take little satisfaction from their performance.

"That is as poor as we have played for a long time, and that concerns me more than where we are in the league," he said.

"We lost our way in the second half, didn't put any phases together and we made some horrendous errors."