Worcester Warriors 24 Connacht 24.

THAT dreaded kicking curse is starting to rear its ugly head again – and it may come at a large cost for Worcester Warriors.

Since being handed the tee in late November, Chris Pennell’s unerring accuracy has been key to Warriors’ turn around in fortunes.

But the Sixways stalwart is beginning to show signs of wavering as he missed twice in Worcester’s heavy defeat to Bath in the Aviva Premiership last week.

And his wayward conversion and penalty attempt on Saturday came back to bite Warriors as they drew 24-24 with Connacht in the European Challenge Cup.

Aside from his two failures Pennell did hit the target twice in an action-packed first half which saw Warriors score four tries with Perry Humphreys bagging a brace.

But Jamie Shillcock’s missed conversion while Pennell was in the sin-bin emphasised Worcester’s problems as they squandered seven precious points.

If they had landed those kicks Warriors would have been 31-14 in front at half-time.

But Carl Hogg’s men gave Connacht who were reduced to 13 men in the final five minutes of the first half hope and in the end the Irish outfit could have snatched victory.

The draw secured Pool Five leaders Connacht’s passage through to the quarter-finals while Warriors need to beat Brive in France next Saturday to guarantee their place as one of the three runners up.

It’s a tall ask but if Worcester can get off to a flying start like they did against Connacht there is no reason why they cannot progress.

Connacht arrived at Sixways on the back of four successive wins in the competition, but Warriors had them rattled with two tries in the opening five minutes.

Firstly, Josh Adams slotted the ball through to Humphreys who won the foot race before dotting down in the corner.

And their footballing skills came to the fore again moments later. GJ van Velze showed great athleticism to volley the ball out wide to Humphreys who poked it in behind for Sam Lewis to chase and score.

Pennell converted the first but went wide with the second before being yellow carded for tripping Kieran Marmion near the try-line.

Connacht took full advantage as number eight John Muldoon peeled off the back of a scrum and powered in with Craig Ronaldson converting.

Despite being a man down, Warriors moved the ball well and after switching play from left to right Adams’ looping pass found Humphreys in space to notch his second. Shillcock failed to convert.

But the away side came charging back as Dean Hammond stopped Bundee Aki from going over in the corner before Niyi Adeolokun darted through a huge gap to score.

Ronaldson cut the deficit further to 17-14 with a conversion before Connacht had two men sin-binned in three minutes.

Quinn Roux was the first to go for a tip-tackle before Jarrad Butler saw yellow for a high tackle on van Velze.

Pennell missed a penalty but took his next chance at goal after Ryan Mills pounced on a loose ball and sent Adams in for his 11th try of the season.

But Warriors could not add to their tally and when Connacht got back to full strength they started to dominate.

Ronaldson landed a three-pointer before converting a try from Tiernan O'Halloran who escaped a tackle before sprinting home.

This set up a tense final 20 minutes but neither side could find the match-winning score as Warriors had to settle with three points.