“No wonder we couldn’t win our own ball,” Evans groaned.As a result, Saracens had more possession than they knew what to do with. Quins may remain in the thick of a relegation dogfight that threatens to be more canine than any of its Premiership predecessors, but they would have been more exposed still had they failed to take something from this exercise in sporting tragi-comedy.The visitors’ laughable performance in the first 40 minutes was epitomised by the Mystery of the Missing Line-out. But Evans was far from frustrated at the conclusion of yesterday’s game, even though his side had failed to prevail over a team against whom they registered 40 points as recently as last month. Art and craft? Forget it.
Mark Evans, the Harlequins coach, once described drawn matches as “about as satisfying as kissing your sister” On this evidence, he was not wrong. In the first half, there was barely a kick that was not charged down by some lumbering forward or other; in the second, the simple act of passing the ball in the general direction of a chap’s hands rather than behind his earlobe was beyond everyone until Thomas Castaign? materialised in the home side’s midfield Guts and commitment? Plenty of both. There were more dodgy decisions at Vicarage Road than Kimberly Quinn could manage in a lifetime, and as the referee, Ashley Rowden, was responsible for precisely none of them, it was a prime example of two bad teams having an off-day.

The scores were level when Moore, playing against his home-town club, coolly struck the winning point, the first time Saints had led in the match.Warrington’s friendly against Widnes at the Halliwell Jones Stadium was called off just 30 minutes before kick-off because the pitch was frozen.. However, they expect Macgillivray to be fit for the start of the new Super League season on 13 February.Scott Moore, the St Helens scrum-half, snatched a late drop goal to inflict a 17-16 defeat on Leigh. They were 40-0 down when the stand-off Jamie Rooney opened their account with a try he converted himself.To compound their misery, Wakefield lost their Australian forward Duncan Macgillivray with a dislocated shoulder. Gareth Ellis, the Great Britain centre, will stay with Wakefield Wildcats for the 2005 season.

Substitutes not used: Moilanen (gk), Pereira, Jancyzk, Berra.Celtic (4-4-2): Douglas; McNamara, Bald?Varga, Laursen; Petrov, Lennon, Thompson, McGeady; Sutton, Hartson. The club’s prospective new owner Vladimir Romanov was to take control earlier this month but the deal has been put back to February.Robertson said: “It is very frustrating because there are a lot of players who have been given contracts and they have refused to sign them or are waiting to see what is happening. Until someone tells me what we can or cannot offer, there is not a lot we can do.”Goals: McGeady (9) 0-1; Petrov (68) 0-2.Hearts (4-5-1): Gordon; Neilson, Pressley, McKenna, Maybury; Stamp, Stewart (MacFarlane 11), Hartley, Wyness (Hamill 57), McAllister (Weir 73); De Vries. Petrov dragged another finish wide just before the hour, but he redeemed himself with a volley nine minutes later from Chris Sutton’s knockdown that rifled into the net from 16 yards, and sealed Celtic’s victory.The Hearts head coach, John Robertson, said the delay surrounding the takeover of the club had left him “in no man’s land” with his attempts to keep players. “We kept another clean sheet, which is something we did not do earlier in the season. I was not scoring goal for a while but now they are coming for me. This is always a hard place to come and we wanted to be top at new year.”While Petrov’s picturebook finish in the 68th minute will live in the memories of the raucous travelling support, the early breakthrough from Aiden McGeady was equally valuable.The teenager’s predatory instincts in the ninth minute saw him get to the back post to finish off Petrov’s low cross with an angled shot past Craig Gordon.O’Neill said Scottish supporters should be cheering McGeady, not booing him.