WARRIORS director of rugby Mike Ruddock revealed London Irish skipper Bob Casey admitted Worcester should have won the game after the two sides drew 16-16 at the Madejski Stadium.

The home side’s second row, coached by Ruddock when the pair were at Irish provincial side Leinster, made a beeline for the Sixways director of rugby after the final whistle to show his admiration.

The Warriors boss declared: “I thought it was a winning performance by us — we deserved to win the game and were the stronger side overall.

“We made less errors and, in fact, Bob came up to me after the game and said he thought we’d deserved to win.

“In some ways, I’m pleased we have come to one of the top teams in England and stopped them from getting a home victory.

“But, in another way, I’m disappointed we didn’t go the extra mile and get the victory.

“We’re not a million miles away but it is just a case of making that knock-out punch to deliver the result.

“Overall, I thought we battled hard, our scrum was strong and our line-out and maul were good.

“Our breakdown work overall was very good but we did seem to give away a lot of penalties there.

“The breakdown is a big discussion area at the moment with regards to getting that consistency with the interpretations.

“Irish tried to play at times off quick line-outs and counter-attack as we knew they would, so it was important for us to defend well. There was just one defensive lapse by us in the second-half when they broke through.

“However, we haven’t been beaten in our last three league games now and that will give us the confidence to press on.

“Obviously, we want to win every game but it is such a tough league and the main thing is we are not getting beaten.

“Our performance levels are good enough to win — certainly in the last two games against the top two teams in the league — and we have to take a lot from that.”

Meanwhile, Ruddock defended rookie scrum-half Johnny Arr’s last-gasp decision to try and chip the ball to Miles Benjamin when Warriors were edging towards drop-goal territory.

The Sixways chief added: “We could have tried for the drop-goal at the end but we don’t want to take the initiative away from our players either.

“If that kick from Johnny had bounced into Miles’ hands at the end, we would have all been rejoicing over what a fantastic bit of play it was.

“There was space in behind and it would have been a tough drop-goal for Willie Walker in difficult conditions with a greasy ball.

“Johnny’s kick is not something I’m going to lose sleep over.”