WARRIORS’ indiscipline ultimately cost them the chance of pulling off a famous win over Harlequins at The Stoop as they slipped to a Aviva Premiership defeat.

A sky-high penalty-count and losing two players to the sin-bin proved an insurmountable obstacle to battling Worcester, who pushed the reigning champions all the way and were good value for their losing bonus point.

On a bitterly cold night at The Stoop, Warriors caught Harlequins cold with a try in the opening three minutes from David Lemi, who wriggled over in the corner after a superb off-load from Chris Pennell.

Fly-half Andy Goode missed the conversion, but soon made it 8-0 when Quins went off their feet to give Worcester a dream start.

Harlequins finally got their act together and were held up over the line, but referee Luke Pearce was playing penalty advantage and Evans was able to open his side’s account.

From the re-start, though, Worcester showed their teeth again with excellent ball-snaffling work from Matt Kvesic turning Quins over, before Neil Best carried the ball and won a penalty, which Goode dispatched to restore the eight-point advantage.

From then on in, the hosts began to show why they are the reigning champions and piled the pressure on Worcester, which resulted in the visitors being reduced to 14 men as Lemi was yellow-carded for handling in the ruck near his own line.

Quins opted to set up the driving line-out and Warriors only managed to thwart the try by illegally going in at the side and Evans made it 11-6 with the penalty.

Goode added three more for Worcester, but the hosts were always a threat and when Semisi Taulava was tackled in-goal, it gave them the platform to score through a well-worked move from centre Matt Hopper. More Quins pressure late in the half resulted in Taulava being forced to illegally kill the ball near his own line and he became the second Worcester player to earn a 10-minute rest and Evans slotted the three-pointer to give his side the lead for the first time.

Both sides cancelled each other out early in the second-half, but the hosts gradually won the upper hand at scrum time, and a penalty from a big hit on Warriors’ put-in saw Evans increase the lead to 19-14.

Birthday boy Alex Grove then created a try out of nothing by breaking the line and off-loading to replacement Errie Claassens, who slid over for a score. Goode missed the conversion, but the scores were level at 19-19.

However, Quins finished the game stronger and more penalties from the visitors allowed them the field position for Evans to knock-over the decisive drop-goal late in the game.

Warriors: Pennell (Claassens, 63); Walker, Grove, Matavesi, Lemi; Goode, Hodgson (Arr, 63); Ceri Jones, Shervington (Lutui, 55), Andress (Murray, 35), Percival, Chris Jones (Schofield, 53), Best (Betty, 63), Kvesic, Taulava. Not used: O’Donnell, Short. Referee: Luke Pearce.. Attendance: 11,630.