BOSS Alan Solomons was left ruing Worcester Warriors’ “very heavy” penalty count after they slipped to a 22-9 loss at bottom club London Irish.

Piet van Zyl scored the only try of the game as Greig Tonks took advantage of Warriors’ ill-discipline to secure only their second Aviva Premiership win of the season.

Chris Pennell notched three penalties but they rarely threatened Irish who reduced the gap at the bottom to 12 points with six games to go.

“Irish had a very simple game plan,” Solomons said.

“Fundamentally they kicked for field position and launched a lot of contestable kicks but the penalty count was very heavy against us which made a huge difference.”

Warriors were penalised 16 times with several coming in the final 10 minutes.

Tonks missed the first of those but landed the next two penalties to cement the victory.

“Our penalty count was pretty high which made it very difficult for us,” Solomons said.

“If you look at the end of the game we got onto the attack and rightly I thought that penalty was correct for Bressy (Anton Bresler) going off his feet.

“We then got a penalty back and kicked to the corner.

“We launched off the line-out, Millsy (Ryan Mills) got hit and they got another penalty.

“They then got down into our area and got another penalty. That’s how it happened and we tended to have no field position.”

Solomons also felt his team’s “silly mistakes” cost them dear at the Madejski Stadium but he admitted he would look into his side’s ill-discipline further ahead of next Sunday’s clash against Leicester Tigers at Sixways (3pm).

“I have got to look at the penalties, analyse them and see what they were given for and their justification,” Solomons added.