Brian McDermott insists Harlequins RL are close to turning the corner, despite crashing to their sixth defeat in seven games last weekend.

The 32-18 home loss to Huddersfield ensured Quins remain bottom of the pile ahead of Friday night’s trip to Bradford.

But McDermott is confident he has spotted shoots of recovery for his injury-ravaged side.

He said: “You could see out there against Huddersfield that there were little bits and bats coming off as the team is learning all the time.

“We have a very young squad - that is not an excuse that is fact.

“We need to keep it real - the team has come in for a lot of stick recently because people are not looking at the bigger picture.

“A huge part of my job is to take all the negative stuff that is written about us and keep that from the players.

“People keep telling me it is not working down here, but in my opinion it could not be working better.

“You look at the likes of Ben Bolger and Martyn Smith in training and it is humbling to see how much hard work they put in.

“It may not come now, but years down the line they will be the bedrock of this side and that will only happen if we stick with the programme.”

Quins looked set for a heavy defeat when they trailed both 14-0 and 30-6 to the Giants on Saturday night, but tries from Chad Randall, Chris Melling and Tony Clubb made it a contest.

And McDermott hopes that is a sign of things to come.

He added: “It was our best performance of the season by far and I was proud of the players.

“We train hard and we do care and that translated onto the pitch.

“At times I thought our defence was outstanding - we defied physics in some patches.

“I thought we gambled a bit tonight as well - we cannot beat teams in an arm-wrestle so we have to try things.

“There was some stuff going on that made me tighten my a**-cheeks but we came out the better for it.”

Harlequins RL’s next three matches: Mar 26 Bradford (a), Apr 1 Crusaders (a), 5 Hull KR (h)