SHAUN McRae lavished praise on his battling Salford side after the Reds clawed back at the death to stun Harlequins with victory at the Stoop.

Salford looked dead and buried when they trailed 22-14 with little more than five minutes to play, only for Stephen Nash and Luke Swain to cross for match-winning late scores.

McRae, delighted to pick up an unexpected victory, said: "When Harlequins scored late on I thought 'here we go again'.

"But when there is time left on the clock you always have a chance, and we proved that today.

"To score two tries in the last five minutes is pretty special, but I thought we thoroughly deserved to win.

"It is just a shame we are not in the running for the play-offs at all.

"We have lost too many games by just a few points - convert those into wins, and we would be up there.

"But there is still plenty of potential here, and we have to keep working at it."

John Wilshere

The first half was a desperate affair between two poor sides, and it took until the 15-minute mark before the scoreboard was troubled - Jon Wells fumbling Stefan Ratchford's grubber through and allowing John Wilshere to pounce.

Back came the hosts, with Luke Dorn and Chad Randall crossing to wrestle back the lead.

But that was short-lived, Wilshere scampering in again after clever work from Robbie Paul - and Dean McGilvray raced fully 70 metres after picking off a Dorn pass.

After the break, Rob Purdham and Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook stormed home to seemingly give the hosts a much-needed victory - only for the Salford late show to stun the London crowd.

A dejected Brian McDermott offered few excuses for his side.

"Once again we did not play well," he said.

"I do not think we have a chance of making the play-offs, certainly not playing like that.

"There was a lot of poor decision-making out there, and that is a real problem.

"We had a side out there today good enough to beat Salford - and we should have beaten them. But there were some dumb decisions made, and that cost us."

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