Worcester 7 (0) Try: Penalty Con: Powell London Irish 9 (6) Pens: Mapletoft (2) DG: Catt Powergen Cup photos

Two penalties from Mark Mapletoft and a late drop goal from Mike Catt put the Exiles 9-0 ahead.

Worcester, who dominated the second half, got on the scoresheet in the final minute courtesy of a penalty try, which Matt Powell converted.

London Irish, who effectively sealed the win through Worcester's failure to capitalise, move into the last eight.

Exiles head coach Gary Gold singled out his side's defence after the win.

"It was something that we said we had to get back to and we did that," said Gold. "There was definitely a fantastic hunger to want to make tackles and protect our try line."

Worcester rarely looked like scoring, and the only breaks of note come courtesy of full-back Thinus Delport and centre Dale Rasmussen.

They were let down by a shocking penalty count, and were penalised four times in the opening 10 minutes alone.

The major talking point of the first half came in the 22nd minute when Worcester prop Chris Horsman knocked the ball out of Mapletoft's hands.

It was a war of attrition and they came out on top - just Worcester director of rugby John Brain

He was duly sin-binned and Mapletoft kicked his second and final penalty of the match.

Worcester went down to 13 men moments later after Thomas Lombard kicked the ball away, and they did remarkably well not to concede any points with the deficit.

Irish, though, were forced to play with one man down in the second half when Catt was given 10 minutes to cool off for a ruck offence.

The England international, however, made amends with his 79th-minute drop goal to put the tie out of Worcester's reach despite the home side's late converted penalty try.

"It was a war of attrition and they came out on top... just," said Worcester's director of rugby John Brain.

"London Irish work hard for one another and defended exceptionally well when they had to.

"We had chances to win the game but we took quite a high penalty count."

Worcester: Delport, Pieters, Rasmussen, Lombard, O'Leary, Brown, Powell, Windo, van Niekerk, Horsman, Collier, Gillies, Viali, Hickey, MacLeod-Henderson.
Replacements: Fortey, Hall, Murphy, Rae, Cole, Hayes, Sampson.

London Irish: Horak; Sackey, Bishop, Catt, Staniforth; Mapletoft, Hodgson; Wheatley, Russell, Hardwick; Casey, Kennedy, Danaher, Dawson (capt), Murphy.
Replacements: Durant, Paice, Strudwick, Reid, Gustard, Barrett, Everitt.

Referee: Hugh Watkins (Wales)