WARRIORS director of rugby John Brain insists Shane Drahm should have been allowed to re-take the conversion attempt which might have given his side a draw against London Irish.

Drahm hit the right-hand upright with the kick late in the Premiership fixture which would have levelled the scores but he appeared to be put off by an onrushing Irish player.

Referee Roy Maybank raised his arm to signal the player had come off his line too early but refused to allow a furious Drahm to take the kick again.

"We will require an explanation for that one," said Brain.

"He was pointing at the player who was attempting the charge down. He was pointing at him and then did nothing about it.

"There were a couple of decisions you could look at. We could have nicked the game and probably no-one would have complained. But I feel, on balance, they probably just deserved to win that game because of the way they controlled territory. They kicked the ball better than we did."

Fly-half Barry Everitt was Worcester's chief tormentor with a faultless kicking display. Drahm hit a brilliant penalty from inside his own half but was unable to pin Irish back for long stretches of the match.

"I don't think we really deserved to win because they controlled field position better than us," said Brain. "I think we only got into their 22' in the second-half once and we scored a try."

But Brain refused to be downbeat after a ninth Premiership defeat out of 10.

He continued: "There are still a lot of positives from our point of view. We have lost, which is extremely disappointing, but we have come close without an awful lot of territorial advantage.

"That's something we can take out of the game, as is our defence. We took a soft try early on but they are a potent attacking team and, in the second-half in particular, we soaked up a lot of what they had to throw at us.

"The penalty count was only 12-11 but it seemed a lot more than that against us because whenever we gave away penalties or free-kicks, they were in the danger zones.

"They came here with a game plan and that was part of it. They did execute their game plan extremely well."

Brain confirmed flanker Gavin Quinnell and prop Tony Windo are both "in the frame" for the visit of Harlequins on Wednesday night (8pm).