RATHER THAN a group hug, Harlequins should pinch each other as hard as they can to make sure they are not dreaming.

How they escaped with a win from the last Heineken Cup match to be played at Stradey Park, after trailing 19-3 at the break, will enter into club folklore.

You could point to the fact that they grew up after a half-time rollicking from coach John Kingston, or Dean Richards used his bench astutely and brought on a couple of hard-nosed campaigners in Nick Easter and Tani Fuga.

Then there was the extraordinary transformation of Chris Malone from a bumbler who gave them no direction before the break into a fly-half who played with such poise and accuracy after it that he turned the screw on a Scarlets side who lost their way.

Not only did the Welsh region’s dominant pack run out of puff, but they lost the creative edge offered by Regan King when the Kiwi, who must be the best centre not playing international rugby, went off midway through the second half.

The double blow of also losing hooker Matthew Rees to the sin-bin for a high tackle on Gonzalo Tiesi meant the momentum passed – so much so that by the end the home side were left to rue the three clear try-scoring opportunities they squandered before half-time.

Harlequins got back on track following the Kingston pep talk with two Malone penalties to one in reply from Stephen Jones, though they were still 22-9 adrift.

Danny Care began the revival in earnest when he drilled his way over from a tap penalty, Malone’s conversion narrowing the deficit to 22-16, and he then trimmed it to 22-19 with a penalty after Rees’s indiscretion.

Malone’s second-half masterclass continued when he gave Quins the lead for the first time with a pin-point cross-kick to the left wing for Ugo Monye to collect a kind bounce and score in the corner, Malone’s conversion making it 26-22.

And he rubbed salt in the Scarlets’ wounds when he pushed Quins out to a 29-22 win with the final kick of the match, sealing a result that had looked utterly beyond them an hour earlier.

They must have been listening to too many horror stories of the amateur days when the archetypal London toffs used to travel down to deepest west Wales in trepidation and invariably limp back home having been taken apart by the steel-workers and miners who wore the scarlet jerseys of Llanelli. Talk about stage fright. They were unrecognisable from the confident side who have run everything in sight in the Guinness Premiership.

We did not see a glimpse of it in a first half in which the Scarlets outplayed them so completely that they were left looking like callow novices.

The Welsh side ripped in to the English invaders from the first whistle and struck a crucial psychological blow with one of the fastest tries the Heineken Cup has seen. From the kick-off a loose Harlequins clearance went straight to Darren Daniel on the right wing and was shipped crisply to the left, where Morgan Stoddart came into the line at full tilt outside Matthew Rees, beating Gary Botha in a clear mismatch to score the first try of the match with only 32 seconds on the clock.

From then until the half-time whistle the Scarlets onslaught was unrelenting, and it came from all points of the rugby compass. The Harlequins scrum, which has looked solid against English opponents, was in disarray against an all-international Scarlets eight, which has been bolstered significantly by the addition this season of the former All Black titan Kees Meeuws and the Australian No 8 David Lyons.

That confidence was evident when they called for a set-piece in the Quins 22 soon afterwards rather than kick a penalty, and it reaped an immediate reward. With Ceri Jones struggling to contain the power of Meeuws, the home side got a fast heel and a lovely long pass from King to Stoddart created the overlap.

The full-back gave the scoring pass to Mark Jones, who grounded the ball in the left corner. Harlequins were in total disarray.

Stephen Jones stretched the lead to 19-3 with three penalties before half-time, but another gilt-edged Scarlets scoring opportunity went begging in first-half injury time when Mike Brown made a brilliant corner-flag tackle on Daniel after a Stephen Jones clearance had found no Harlequins at home.

However, it was an about-face from there on, and Harlequins will fancy their home tie against Ulster this weekend, while the Scarlets will look rather less fondly at their trip to Stade Français.

Star man: Chris Malone (Harlequins)

Referee: C Berdos (France)

Attendance: 8,236