JOHN Brain was unimpressed by the pre-Christmas turkey served up by Worcester and London Irish.

The Sixways director of rugby was disappointed by the Powergen Cup sixth round clash but had reservations about the penalty count from referee Hugh Watkins.

"It was a war of attrition and they came out on top . . . just," he said.

"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.

"The two sin-bins in the first-half were interesting so we'll have to have a look at those," added Brain

"The discipline was an issue. We knew about the ref and we knew he liked to go into his pocket a fair bit.

"The incidents in which he did go into his pockets, he saw them as professional fouls.

"We certainly didn't help ourselves. In the first-half we gave away some pretty silly penalties in crucial areas of the pitch. We spoke about that at half-time and it improved in the second period."

The result was all the more disappointing for Brain because of the amount of possession Worcester enjoyed in the second-half and their dominance in the set-piece.

"We've got to look at that and question why that was," added Brain.

"One area of concern for me, looking at the referee just on that game, was the way that our scrum dominance didn't produce anything at all until a pushover penalty try from 10 metres out at the end.

"We were on top in that area all afternoon even when we were down to seven men. I'd like to look at that again and give the referee some feedback.

"We're not blaming him for the fact that we've lost the game, however.

"Irish worked very hard and they're a well organised unit."

Worcester welcome the Irish back to Sixways on New Year's Day for a Premiership encounter and Brain was already looking forward to the 'rematch'.

"We'll certainly have to look at ways of getting through that defence," said Brain.

"We're not necessarily worried about that, though, because we've recently scored three tries against the European champions."