Worcester saved their worst for their most significant match of the season, and a return to the Championship beckons. Twelve Premiership defeats out of 12 leaves them in danger of becoming the first club since Rotherham, 10 years ago, to go down without a victory, although Newcastle's slump leaves the Warriors still clinging to the wreckage.
London Irish started the day one place and 10 points above Worcester but were comfortably the superior side in a match as dank and dismal as the weather. Australian rugby's enfant terrible, James O'Connor, scored all their points, including a try on the hour after a rare moment of enterprise, but it was the home side's power up front and their driving maul that denied the Warriors even the small consolation of a bonus point.
Worcester were resolute but uninspired, as if playing by a manual. They were not reactive and when they exerted sustained pressure for the first time, in the last 10 minutes, they made basic, unforced errors and looked a team on the way down. Their position may not look hopeless with 10 rounds to go and Newcastle 11 points above them, but three of their next four matches are against title contenders before their trip to the north east on 30 March.
"The longer it goes [without a win] the harder it gets, but we are not giving up," Dean Ryan, Worcester's director of rugby, said. "We are pretty tight as a team and we are not giving up or hiding. We have Leicester next on a Friday night at Sixways and we will give it a real crack. Today was disappointing because it was a step backwards in a pressure match and we have got to come out fighting."
It was a match dominated by the boot, although neither outside-half, Shane Geraghty nor Paul Warwick, was proficient at launching high kicks. Worcester conceded a rash of penalties at the breakdown, struggling to repel Irish's driving maul and when their serial offender, the No 8, Leonardo Senatore, was sent to the sin-bin 14 minutes into the second-half, the home side exploited his absence to effectively win the match with 10 unanswered points.
The sides were relieved to see the end of 2013. Worcester lost their past 16 Premiership matches of the year after beating Wasps at the beginning of March and they had not won away in the league since New Year's Day in 2012 when Wasps, again, were their victims. Irish had won three of their previous 15 matches in the tournament and their lowest league crowd in more than two years reflected form as much as the poor weather.
A try looked unlikely as O'Connor and Chris Pennell exchanged penalties during a first half in which the sides shared 12 points. The Wallaby, who London Irish hope to keep until next January when he is expected to return to Australia to challenge for a place in their World Cup squad, missed two from within 40 metres, but three successful kicks after the break gave his side a cushion before his try, which was inspired by Geraghty's long pass.
Worcester lacked anyone with the creative ability of Geraghty and O'Connor. Warwick made one break from his own 22 in the opening period, flummoxing the defence, but the Warriors' one move of note all afternoon ended typically, through a mistake.
Ryan was asked whether he agreed with supporters who had used social media immediately after the final whistle to question the commitment of his players. "That's unfair," he said. "Worcester Warriors has to stop throwing things at players, putting us in the stocks and flinging mud. A number of people are working really hard to turn the corner with this club and we were pretty dysfunctional at the start of the season. Someone can sit in their mother's back room and fire a message on a computer but we have to move away from that."
Irish moved away from the bottom two after recording the season's double over Worcester, and their long-term position, after a takeover last month that will wipe out their debts, is relatively secure, even if they are not playing with the brio of old. They have O'Connor and, sometimes, short-term fixes can help in the long-term.
