English Cup Third round/Worcester - 7 London Irish - 9: London Irish will take their usual place in this morning's English Cup quarter-final draw after a game which would have made the paltry 2,517 crowd wish they had gone Christmas shopping after all.
Richard Stevens at SixwaysAt least for the £14-or-so entrance fee they could have bought a present. Instead, all they got were two penalties, a drop-goal, a penalty try and three sin-binnings, while the sides' respective wings would have been better utilised hanging up decorations.
The only consolation for those who had foregone the shops to watch what the Worcester coach John Brain called a "war of attrition" is that the New Year's Day Premiership re-match at Sixways can never be as dull.
Still, for Irish yet another quarter-final place: the only team to achieve an eighth straight quarter-final. For the Warriors, some solace in that they destroyed the Irish lineout and, even with seven men at one stage, roughed them up in the scrum enough to give them an edge in a fortnight.
In limbo at sixth place in the league, the cup remains Irish's best hope of silverware and, more importantly, a passport into next season's European Cup. If England's premier knockout competition is a poor pay-day, especially through the turnstiles, European rugby with its satellite television coverage is certainly a crock of gold.
Irish spent most of the first half and much of the second in Worcester territory but failed to score more than two Mark Mapletoft penalties and a Mike Catt drop-goal.
Worcester eventually got on the scoresheet two minutes into injury-time with a penalty try as Irish consistently pulled down the scrum, but by then Catt's drop-goal had sealed victory.
WORCESTER: Delport; O'Leary (Sampson, 53), Rasmussen (Hayes, 66), Lombard, Pieters; Brown, Powell; Windo (capt, Fortey 63) Van Niekerk, Horsman, Collier, Gillies, Vaili, Hickey, Macloed-Henderson.
LONDON IRISH: Horak; Bishop, Appleford, Catt, Staniforth; Mapletoft (Everitt, 52), Hodgson; Wheatley, Russell (Paice, 69) Hardwick, Kennedy (Strudwick, 63), Casey, Danaher, Dawson (capt, Gustard 60), Murphy (Reid 60).
Referee: H Watkins (Neath).
