Friday’s Premiership: Harlequins beat Worcester Warriors, Sale Sharks and London Irish draw | Rugby Union News

Friday’s Gallagher Premiership: Worcester 21-29 Harlequins; Sale Sharks 27-27 London Irish; Bristol Bears 31-19 Wasps; Saturday: Leicester Tigers vs Gloucester (3pm), Newcastle Falcons vs Bath (3pm); Sunday: Northampton Saints vs Exeter Chiefs (1pm).

Danny Care was among the try scorers as Quins won at Worcester in the Premiership

Recap Friday’s Gallagher Premiership action as Harlequins picked up victory at Worcester, while Sale and London Irish drew.

Worcester Warriors 21-29 Harlequins

Harlequins picked up five valuable Gallagher Premiership points with a hard-fought 29-21 victory over a resurgent Worcester at Sixways.

The Warriors competed fiercely but the visitors were the more potent attackers and despite some nervous moments were deserved winners.

Tyrone Green, Danny Care, Tom Lawday and Archie White scored tries for Quins with Will Edwards converting two. Tommy Allan added a penalty and a conversion.

Noah Heward, Sione Vailanu and Seb Atkinson were Worcester’s try-scorers, with Finn Smith converting two and Billy Searle one.

Sale Sharks 27-27 London Irish

Paddy Jackson missed a late conversion and penalty as London Irish had to be content with a very creditable 27-27 draw against Sale Sharks in the Gallagher Premiership match at the AJ Bell Stadium.

Both teams struggled to find their rhythm in the first half but each side did manage to touch down, with Terrence Hepetema going over for the Exiles and Dan du Preez responding for Sale, before AJ MacGinty kicked the hosts 8-7 ahead at the interval.

Jackson scored a penalty at the start of the second period, which began a remarkable series of events and led to one of the best second halves of the season.

The match continually went back and forth, with Jean-Luc du Preez and twin brother Dan, who completed his brace, touching down for the Sharks, and James Stokes and Benhard Janse van Rensburg hitting back for the visitors.

That left the game finely poised at 22-22 but Arron Reed then moved the home side ahead with a quarter of the clash remaining.

London Irish continued to play their free-flowing game, however, and levelled through Nick Phipps. Jackson missed the conversion, though, and then a late three-pointer as they were forced to settle for a share of the spoils.

Bristol Bears 31-19 Wasps

Jack Willis lasted an hour in his first Wasps start for more than a year after recovering from a serious knee injury, but their woes on the road continued as Bristol banked a badly needed five points with a 31-19 win in the Premiership.

Wasps had only lost once to Bristol in 15 Premiership matches but they were 21 points down before they stirred themselves.

As in the previous round at Harlequins, they left themselves with too much to do and missed the chance to close the gap on the top four.

The visitors were close to full strength at forward with the Willis brothers in harness in the back row – Jack was making his first start since January last year – and Joe Launchbury back from England duty, but they made errors in defence.