"It could have gone either way - and it did," said Quins boss Mark Evans.

"We went ahead with about six minutes to go, and in this league the game is still very much a live game. In the same way that in the ten to 15 minutes before that, when we were behind 18-10, the momentum was in our hands and we had a couple of chances that we didn't take and it was always likely to swing back to them."

"We dropped off too many tackles all afternoon but they are a powerful running team. But that's no excuse - we just dropped off too many tackles."

Quins almost grabbed the game back at the death, only to turn the ball over close to the Gloucester line, but Evans didn't think that it was in the bag when Burke's drop goal gave his side the lead again.

"I very much thought that it was up for grabs. We were only one point ahead, (Ludovic) Mercier was on the field and a drop goal or a penalty was all that was needed."

"It was all about field position and we had a lineout around the halfway line and we lost it against the throw. On such small things those sort of games, when it comes down to the last ten minutes or so, are decided."

"We had gone up there, attacked, plus a knock-on from a set play, probably should have scored, came back dropped a goal, good effort."

"One point up, took the restart got back to halfway, win your lineout and drive it up a bit, run the clock down - but we didn't win the lineout," he said ruefully.

So did Quins lose it or did Gloucester win it?

"We should have won it," continued the Quins boss, "but it happens all the time. It was a soft try, but it came after a long period of pressure and they stretched us a bit, and we were always scrambling the minute we lost the lineout."

"We threw it long, and nobody got the overthrow, Burkey dived in and Will stayed, and Jake Boer went through the hole and as soon as they were behind us we were struggling. I thought that it would be set-up for a drop goal by Mercier."

"Once you are in that area like we were, once we got into that area we scored and once they got there I thought they are likely to get a chance here. They got a try but a drop goal would have done them equally well, but then with two minutes to go we've got to go all the way up the field and we would have to drop a goal - good game though."

And therein lies the rub - decent performance, mistakes notwithstanding, but yet again with the points in sight Quins couldn't close it out.

"They had a very good first three or four minutes and I thought 'oh bloody hell!' I had watched their pre-season games and they had put 50 points on Newport and done pretty well against the Sharks over in Natal and I thought that they were looking very sharp. Then we dominated them for 20 minutes and should have been 13-0 up because Burkey unbelievably, and you can't blame him because he misses so few, missed from in front of the sticks."

"Then they came back and played some good stuff, mainly off turnovers which they are very good at, which we said in the week, and then scored right on the stroke of half-time, which is always a good time to score to make it 18-10."

"That was more than one score away so a little bit of a mountain to climb, but I thought we played very well second half to be fair and sliced them up a bit off of set-piece ball a couple of times."

"Ben Gollings was in wasn't he?," refering to the wingers chip and chase in the second half.

"He was streaking ahead of man, got a bad bounce of the ball, but there you go - tight game."