Greenwood puts Quins straight

They will make the 800-metre journey down the road to Headquarters for the Tetley's Bitter final against Newcastle on February 24, having got there against all odds by rising from the depths to knock the champions of Europe, Northampton, out in the quarter-finals followed by the champions of England in the semis. True to form, only the quixotic Quins could engineer the possibility of winning the Cup and being relegated in one fell swoop.

Giantkilling is hardly the right word for it given that they have giants of their own in Keith Wood, Jason Leonard, David Wilson, Eric Peters and, after this, Will Greenwood. But their 22-18 beating of Leicester still constitutes the biggest upset in the competition since Bath met their Waterloo on Mersey-side almost 10 years ago.

How Quins did it hinged in the final analysis not merely on the pre-match psychology, nor the mighty effort of their pack, but on a tactical decision taken on the spur of the moment by the Harlequin who understood what made the Tigers tick better than anyone, Greenwood. What the former Leicester centre decided on the hoof in consultation with a few others proved to be more decisive in the end than any of his own match-winning contributions.

Having made the opening try, executed by Keith Wood in typical battering-ram style, Greenwood then watched his old club shred Quins twice in three minutes for Geordan Murphy to cross unopposed on the right wing followed rapidly by Andy Goode under the posts in the same alarming state of isolation.

'Suddenly, they were running rings round us and making our defence look rubbish,' said Greenwood. 'Once you let them play their flash rugby, you're done for. We were giving them too much space and all the time in the world, allowing them to drift away from us.

'It was a tense time because the game was slipping away. I made a call there and then to change our defensive formation. After a quick chat with a couple of senior players, we decided to switch to a flat-four rugby league system of defence.

'If it had gone wrong, I could have been hounded out of the Quins for good. Instead of standing off, we had to blitz them, fly up, hit the man with the ball and deny them space. It worked reasonably well because they stopped going around us and we forced them into a confrontational game.'

Greenwood does himself less than justice. It worked not 'reasonably well' but almost to perfection in that Leicester spent the entire second half without once reaching the Quins 22, an illustration of how much Pat Howard had been harried out of his midfield role as play-maker-in-chief.

It confirmed Leicester suspicions that they had been undone not by any sub-conscious complacency but by an inside job, a point conceded by acting captain Neil Back in praise of the opposition. For Greenwood, genuinely void of any ill-feeling towards his old club despite leaving last summer rather than spend another season on the Tigers bench, his friendly pre-match warning of 'Beware the Mighty Quins' had proved amazingly prophetic.

The supposed no-hopers, level at 15-15 once full back Ryan O'Neill had put Greenwood through a large hole for the equalising try in first-half stoppage time, smashed their way through again immediately after the break, the under-rated Nick Burrows doing all the spadework for David Wilson to score. Thereafter, the redesigned Greenwood line held firm with the increasing ease provided by their pack's technical authority in beating Leicester at their own game of keep-ball.

The makings for an upset were all there, most notably the sight of Martin Johnson prowling along the touchline before the match. Leicester were always going to miss their suspended leader, his unavoidable absence narrowing the gap between the sides.

Assistant coach Richard Hill, sensing that Leicester would not take Quins seriously enough, and chief executive Mark Evans, having appointed himself caretaker coach on Tuesday following Brooke's sacking, begged to differ.

'I really thought we'd win,' said Evans.'It's a matter of faith, isn't it? All those little things, like the video, the pre-match lunch and hang the expense, added up to give real self-belief.

'Will's call to change the defensive system on the run was a good one, well read in the heat of the game. Bringing our wingers up into a flat-four defence meant they had to transfer the ball very quickly to create space.'

The FA Cup equivalent will offer the uninitiated a better idea of the scale of Quins' achievement. In football terms, this was second-bottom Manchester City knocking out table-topping Manchester United, an analogy which Greenwood, a fan of the former, will seize as an omen for a little later in the season.

What made Quins' win all the more astounding was that they did it despite Scottish stand off Craig Chalmers missing five of his six penalty attempts.