Castleford 56 Harlequins 24: Chase is over as Castleford end long wait for triumph

At that point, they had just managed to overcome some defensive weaknesses to edge a narrow 22-18 interval lead against lowly Harlequins but an elusive Super League win was far from certain.

However, after Reilly and members of his cup-winning side acknowledged the crowd on the 25th anniversary of their famous Wembley triumph, the hosts returned to eventually run out with a first league victory since April 10.

Much of that was down to their modern-day hero – Rangi Chase, the Kiwi stand-off who ran in four tries and had a hand or foot in most of their other six to derail the Londoners.

“He should have taken the tap and gone for a fifth!” said coach Terry Matterson, after Kirk Dixon’s 80th-minute close-range penalty, his eigth goal, completed the scoring in a bizarre game at Wheldon Road.

The Australian did not say much more about the little maverick who has lit up this campaign and seems certain to take on England as the Exiles No 6 in less than a fortnight’s time.

He has probably run out of superlatives.

When Harlequins’ Oliver Wilkes surged over for his second try on 57 minutes, soon after Castleford centre Willie Isa had been carried off with his third ankle injury of the season, Luke Gale’s conversion made it just 32-24 to the hosts and fears raised again.

However, the enigmatic Chase then took complete control to destroy their tiring opponents.

First he weaved through for a solo try on 64 minutes before immediately delivering a delicate chip which Richie Mathers latched on to, finding Adam Milner for another score.

Chase then spun over from dummy half to complete his hat-trick – he had stepped through for his first on 44 minutes – but his magic was still not finished.

With two minutes to go, he nonchalently raced 40m direct from the base of a scrum to leave Quins completely bemused.

“When Rangi Chase started doing his bits we struggled; when people start showing up for him and get a roll on, he becomes very difficult to play against,” admitted coach Rob Powell. “The big difference between the two sides though was the kicking games – theirs just took too much juice out of us.”

Harlequins’ inability to deal with re-starts also thwarted their hopes of a rare win.

They had scored a marvellous try inside the opening two minutes when full-back Jamie O’Callaghan picked up a Milner kick behind his own line, somehow evaded numerous tackle attempts to avoid conceding a drop out and then brilliantly raced the length of the field. Gale converted but they fumbled from the kick-off to allow Danny Orr the chance to find Dixon for an immediate response.

They let re-starts bounce dead three times, one of which resulted in Richard Owen scoring that crucial try just before the break from Mathers’s excellent long pass.

Debutant Chris Riley, on loan from Warrington, had moments earlier done well to out-jump Owen for his second try having finished well from Tony Clubb’s off-load in the 12th minute.

Ex-Castleford prop Danny Ward had produced a fine slip pass for Wilkes to struggle free from tacklers and race 25 metres to put Quins 14-6 ahead before Chase’s delayed pass allowed Mathers space to slice over.

Orr, playing against the club he left last winter, then rolled back the years to break clear from halfway and find Jordan Thompson, the three-quarter who impressed again in his new role as a back-row and finished off with ease.

Chase’s grubber created another try for young hooker Daryl Clark on 49 minutes before Wilkes’s second, but then came the Kiwi’s brilliant purple patch.

Matterson welcomed the return of prop Jonathan Walker after three months out with a knee injury.

“We’ve lacked firepower and size up front,” he said, Brett Ferres the latest to fill in at prop yesterday.

“It’s been an important factor so I was really pleased to see him back and he’ll only get better.

“We were a lot more controlled in the second half but there’s still some things we’ve got to do a lot better.

“We won by 32 points but conceding 24 is very disappointing,” he said.

“Some of our play in the first half showed a lack of concentration.

“We were dropping some really easy balls and we know we’ve got to be a whole lot better.

“When we hold the ball we’re really hard to defend against but over the last three or four weeks we’ve just not done that.

“We also have to have a stronger mentality to defend especially against the team we’re playing next week (Huddersfield),” he added.

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Castleford: Mathers; Dixon, Isa, Arundel, Owen; Chase, Orr; Fozzard, Milner, Emmitt, Jones, Ferres, Snitch. Substitutes: Walker, Thompson, Widders, Clark.

Harlequins: O’Callaghan; Riley, Clubb, Pryce, Melling; Bailey, Gale; Temata, Randall, Ward, Burnett, Mitchell, Wilkes. Substitutes: Ambler, Krasniqi, Ellis, Kopuaritsas.

Referee: R Hicks (Oldham).