Connacht 22 Worcester 21

THIS was a match full of silly mistakes, penalties and yellow cards but high on drama and tension.

Both teams fought hard to try and put one foot in the quarter-finals of the second tier of European competition.

The rugby was far from pretty and there wasn't much to shout about in terms of style and finesse, but the hundreds of Worcester Warriors supporters, who had made the trip over to Galway from England, were certainly kept entertained throughout a nail-bitingly close encounter.

The match was a scrappy and ill-disciplined affair as both Connacht and Worcester were forced to spend major parts of the match with just 14 men.

French referee Eric Darriere brandished five yellow cards, three to Warriors and two to the Irish side.

He was consistent throughout though and the Warriors had only themselves to blame for not making the most of the possession they secured during most of the match.

Worcester should have built a convincing lead early on if they hadn't repeatedly made silly mistakes and given away numerous unnecessary penalties within sight of Connacht's line.

The fly-halves Shane Drahm and David Slemen swapped penalties in the opening 15 minutes, despite prop Chris Horsman becoming the first player to spend 10 minutes in the sin bin for killing the ball.

Connacht centre Chris Matthews followed him on 18 minutes and Worcester hooker Chris Fortey took advantage of his absence to power over for the game's first try following a line-out and drive.

Drahm added the conversion for a 10-3 lead for the Warriors but when he became the third player to be sent to the sin-bin just before half-time, Connacht punished the visitors with a second Slemen penalty and a try from Conor McPhillips to lead 11-10 at the break.

Penalties were swapped again early on in the second-half before it was Connacht's turn to find themselves back down to 14 men as scrum-half Chris Keane got a 10-minute break on the sidelines.

Warriors finally upped the pressure and gave full-back Thinus Delport the opportunity to cross the line on 56 minutes to give them a narrow one-point lead.

Drahm missed the conversion but added a penalty just minutes later and the visitors were in sight of a second victory over the Irish side in as many weeks.

Many Connacht fans felt they deserved a victory against Worcester at Sixways last week though, so there were cheers of delight from the home supporters as the clock ticked down.

Again and again, Worcester got into the opposition's '22' only to come away without any points.

When flanker Kai Horstmann was the fifth player to be sin-binned five minutes from time, Connacht sensed that a victory was within their reach.

Flanker Matt Lacey touched down for the crucial try in the corner on 79 minutes and, although Paul Warwick missed the conversion, they hung on to the one-point lead until the final whistle.

CONNACHT: Mostyn, Robinson, Hearty, Matthews, McPhillips, Slemen, Keane, Rigney, Lacey, Muldoon, Farley, Gallagher, Knoop, Fogarty, Hogan. Replacements used: Short, Swift, Tierney, Warwick, Riordan; (not used): Merrigan, Clarke.

WORCESTER: Le Roux, Odouza, Lombard, Whatling, Delport, Drahm, Powell, Hickey, Sanderson, Horstmann, Gillies, Collier, Horsman, C Fortey, Windo. Replacements used: L Fortey, O'Donoghue, Tuamoheloa, Gomarsall, Rasmussen; (not used): Sparks, Brown.

SCORERS: Connacht -- McPhillips (try), Lacey (try), Slemen (pen x 2), Warwick (pen x 2); Worcester -- C Fortey (try), Delport (try), Drahm (pen x 3, conv).