Zinzan Brooke ran in a late try to secure a narrow 28-25 Allied Dunbar Premiership win for Harlequins as they finally killed off a strong comeback from the luckless Bedford Blues.

Quins raced into a 21-0 lead inside the first 20 minutes, playing some of their best rugby of the season, but were pegged back to 21-17 at half-time by a Bedford side still looking to record their first league points of the season.

The hosts then moved 25-21 ahead with 10 minutes remaining but their hard work came to nothing as 'Zinny', who only came off the bench six minutes from time, scored the decisive try in the dying seconds.

David Officer had opened the scoring for Quins after just five minutes and quickly crossed twice more through Adam Leach and Huw Harries, with Gareth Rees converting on each occasion.With quick ball and great continuity an impressive victory looked to be on the cards.

Bedford looked well beaten at this point but Andrew Thompson stopped the rot by putting their first points on the board with a 28th-minute penalty.

The game then turned in Bedfords favour as Garrick Morgan was sin-binned for the third time in consecutive matches, on this occassion he was deemed guilty of a professional foul.

Bedford rallied and scored two tries just before half-time the first being a penalty score and then Marek Kwisiuk crossed, with Thompson converting both times.

Thompson added a penalty at the start of the second half to bring his side within one point of Quins and Bedford then took the lead in the 69th minute when Ryan Banks went over for an unconverted try.

But just as the home fans sensed a belated first win of the campaign they were silenced by player-coach Brooke, with Rees rubbing salt into the wound by converting for the fourth time.

Quins will take on Darlington this weekend knowing they must replicate their form of the first 20 mins for the duration of the match to secure a quarter-final berth in the Tetley Cup.