Bristol 14 Harlequins 17

Bristol Rugby's new era began with a familiar result – but the start of Paul Hull's reign at least offered glimpses of a brighter future.

Although Hull had taken charge of the previous week's 32-13 Guinness Premiership defeat at Sale, he officially took over the reins in the run-up to yesterday's match – and saw his team deliver an encouraging performance against opponents with genuine title aspirations.

Bristol Rugby led heading into the final few minutes, only for Ugo Monye's late score to deny them a victory which would have cut Worcester's lead over them back to nine points.

Hull's men are now 12 points adrift of Premiership safety and have played one game more than Worcester, who visit the Memorial Stadium on March 29.

With Bath Rugby, Leicester Tigers and Wasps to come before then, Bristol could realistically be relegated by the time Worcester arrive – but yesterday, despite the obvious gloom surrounding the club's immediate predicament, strangely offered a degree of hope.

The performances of the three local youngsters in the Bristol side – notably the contribution from the energetic flanker, Redford Pennycook – were full of encouragement, while David Lemi again cooked up his unique brand of attacking magic.

"The focus is on performance – and if the performance is good, you get yourselves in a position to win games," said Hull. "We got ourselves into that position and it's just unfortunate that we didn't finish it off.

"There have been difficult circumstances over the last couple of weeks and I think the players responded very well.

"We had a better performance in the first half against Sale last week and I wanted to up the ante this week – and the boys responded.

"The result, as well as Worcester winning over the weekend, obviously makes things very difficult. It's been a tricky couple of weeks and the only things we can focus on are the things we can control.

"You can't control other results, and while that would have played on some of the players' minds before the game, I tried to nullify that and said 'let's just focus on ourselves'.

"As it happens, we're disappointed, because we got ourselves in a position to win the game – and we haven't won a game for a long time."

That last Premiership success was achieved against Northampton on November 16, while Bristol have now won only one of their last 21 league games.

They had to regroup yesterday after losing fly-half Adrian Jarvis, who appeared to be caught by a late tackle from Will Skinner as he kicked down-field, inside the opening four minutes.

And regroup they did, breathing a sigh of relief when Chris Malone sent a 40-metre penalty off target, before taking the lead midway through the first half.

Bristol went wide off a scrum, with Lemi and Lee Robinson testing the Quins defence, before they switched play to the other side through Luke Eves, David Blaney and Neil Brew, who went over.

It was the first try Quins had conceded in more than 300 minutes of Premiership rugby – and when Jarvis' replacement, Ed Barnes, landed the conversion, Bristol led 7-0.

The visitors hit back on 29 minutes through hooker Gary Botha. Tom Arscott called a mark and kicked down-field, but Quins returned the kick, with Andy Gomarsall sending Botha in from 15 metres to score, brushing off Shaun Perry's attempted tackle en route.

Malone failed with the conversion, before Barnes missed a penalty for Bristol, and the hosts went into the break with a two-point lead.

That was wiped out two minutes into the second period when a nasty bounce deceived Perry on the 22, and allowed Quins to launch a quick attack. Gomarsall found Malone, who played in Strettle – and his try put the visitors in front.

Bristol prop Darren Crompton and Quins prop Ceri Jones were yellow-carded when a scrum went down, and while the sides were down to 14 men, Bristol scored what looked like it could turn out to be the winning try.

Quins kicked away possession, Lemi ran it back – and after kicking ahead, the Samoan was pulled back as he prepared to strike and referee Chris White awarded a penalty try.

Barnes' conversion made it 14-10 – but the visitors roared back, and after chipping away at the Bristol line with a series of phases, they eventually moved it wide to Monye, who went over to win the game in injury-time.

Bristol: T Arscott; L Robinson, Neil Brew, L Eves, D Lemi; A Jarvis (E Barnes 4), S Perry; M Irish (W Thompson 72), D Blaney, D Crompton (A To’oala 80), D Attwood (R Winters 48), N Budgett, R Pennycook, J El Abd (capt; W Thompson 69-72), D Ward-Smith. Reps not used: M Regan, H Thomas, Nathan Brew.

Scorers: Tries – Neil Brew, penalty. Cons – Barnes (2).

Sin-binned: Crompton (68-80).

Harlequins: M Brown; D Strettle, G Tiesi, J Turner-Hall, T Williams (U Monye 66); C Malone, A Gomarsall (J Poluleuligaga 79); C Jones, G Botha, M Ross, O Kohn (J Evans 62), G Robson, C Robshaw (M Lambert 69), W Skinner (capt), T Guest (N McMillan 74). Reps not used: A Croall, W Luveniyali.

Scorers: Tries – Botha, Strettle, Monye. Con – Malone.

Sin-binned: Jones (68-80)