But they failed to finish off a series of breaks and were condemned to a sixth defeat in eight matches by Rees' 52nd-minute try, the only one of an error-strewn game.

After last week's embarrassing Heineken Cup defeat by Treviso, a fourth successive Premiership success may be just the pick-me-up Quins need.

They were not at their fluent best but Rees came up with the points at crucial times and, as Newcastle launched a furious late bid for victory, the astute Canadian kept his cool to continually push them back with some telling kicks to touch.

The Falcons led 6-0 after 10 minutes thanks to a couple of well-struck penalties from Jonny Wilkinson, one of them a towering effort five metres from the half-way line.

But Newcastle ruined some promising moves with some wayward passing and poor handling and even Wilkinson lost his touch, failing to find the target with two other shots at goal before landing a third penalty two minutes before the break.

Rees, who had scored Harlequins' only first-half points with a 35th-minute drop goal, cut the deficit to three points two minutes into the second half and grabbed the decisive try 10 minutes later after the Falcons, not for the first time, had failed to secure their own line-out possession.

Rees took a clean pass from half-back partner Huw Harries and scythed through the home defence from 20 metres to cross by the posts.

He added the conversion to make it 13-9 and put over a second penalty after Newcastle's replacement scrum-half Allen Chilten had been caught offside.

Wilkinson kept Newcastle in contention with a fifth penalty and almost created an opening for Va'aiga Tuigamala but they generally lacked cohesion and drive, despite the best efforts of mobile prop George Graham, who caused endless problems for the Quins defence with his determined bursts.