HEAD coach Carl Hogg praised Worcester Warriors’ “exceptional and heroic” defensive display after they fought back to win 23-18 against Munster ‘A’ in the British and Irish Cup.

Worcester trailed 15-6 after a poor first-half in Cork before tries from skipper Jean-Baptiste Bruzulier and his replacement Charlie Mulchrone swept Warriors into the last eight of the competition.

“It was a keenly-contested game and we were delighted to come out with a win,” said Hogg.

“We weathered the storm reasonably well for the first 20 minutes and ironically they were two soft tries that we gave away, but in the final 20 minutes of the game, our defence was heroic.

“We started phases of possession on the 22 and ended up getting some line speed and collision and ended up on halfway. Munster is a difficult place to come but the energy of the group was fantastic.”

Fly-half Ignacio Mieres slotted two penalties and two conversions for Warriors in a fine performance.

Number eight Jack O’Donoghue notched Munster’s first try after Sean McCarthy collected a restart and full-back Andrew Conway chipped into the corner before collecting to touch down for Munster’s second try.

Rory Scannell kicked two penalties and a conversion for the hosts.

Hogg said: “I think there were outstanding performances across the park.

“The back row put in a lot of work and Ravai Fatiaki had some huge collisions in midfield but overall we saw a team that wanted to work for each other and cared about getting the result.”

Hogg added: “Defensively, we were exceptional and heroic and it showed how much this group care for Worcester and if we can repeat that display on Saturday we’ll be in a good place.”

Friday’s success means Warriors have topped Pool Three after five successive wins and they can look forward to a home clash in the quarter-finals.

Warriors round off their group phase against Nottingham at Sixways on Saturday.

“We’re looking forward to coming up against Nottingham and we’ll try to go unbeaten in this tournament,” said Hogg.

“There is a lot still riding on Saturday’s final group match against Nottingham on Saturday.

“We want to go home and put on a good display at Sixways and we’ll want to give people an opportunity to keep developing their game.”