Heineken Cup round-up: Williams and Quins leave Leeds badly bloodied

In yesterday's Guinness Premiership matches Worcester, who are last in the table, lost at home to London Irish and Leeds, who are 11th, were hammered at Harlequins. For those who for some unearthly reason enjoy these kind of things, the meeting of the two clubs at Headingley on 25 April will therefore be a) a relegation battle royale and b) probably enough to decide which club is consigned to oblivion – or the Championship, as it's called in polite circles.

Leeds were beaten 46-11 at the Stoop. Harlequins, who are safely ensconced in mid-table, with Bath, scored six tries – the wing Tom Williams drew first blood and he was followed by Mike Brown (twice), George Lowe, Chris Brooker and David Strettle. Nick Evans kicked four conversions and two penalties and his back-up, Rory Clegg, kicked one conversion. Alfie To'oala scored Leeds's try, late on, and Ceiron Thomas kicked two penalties.

Four of Quins' tries came while the highly rated, 20-year-old Leeds flanker Calum Clark was in the sin-bin, after a late challenge on Evans. Neil Back, the Leeds head coach, said: "Discipline is always key and we had a couple of bits of ill-discipline down to the fact you've got a young player trying his best. But [Clark] did some silly things and the 10 minutes that player was on the bench was catastrophic.

"We're almost guilty of trying too hard. The players are desperate to consolidate our position in the Premiership."

At least Worcester made sure that position did not get any more desperate. They lost 23-13 at Sixways to London Irish, for whom the four points went a long way towards securing a play-off place.

A try by Alex Grove and a conversion and a penalty from Willie Walker to a penalty by Chris Malone gave Worcester the lead, but Delon and Steffon Armitage scored tries, converted by Malone, that put Irish 17-10 up at half-time. Walker kicked another penalty in the second half but two penalties from Malone kept Irish ahead and made sure Worcester did not earn a losing bonus point.

Mike Ruddock, the Worcester coach, said: "We talked about having four battles ahead of us. We've lost the first one and we need to regroup for the next one. We are not dispirited. The effort is there, the spirit is there, which gives me hope we can get ourselves out of the pickle we are in."

Sale's defeat by Saracens on Friday and Newcastle's Amlin Challenge Cup duty against the Cardiff Blues today mean nothing has changed at the bottom – the Falcons and Sharks need another win to feel reasonably safe.

In yesterday's first Challenge Cup quarter-final, Connacht booked a home semi-final. The most westerly Irish province came back from 20-14 down against Bourgoin at the Galway Sportsground, winning 23-20 with a 78th-minute drop-goal by Miah Nikora. Michael Swift and John Muldoon scored Connacht's tries in the first half; Tone Kopelani and John Senio scored tries for Bourgoin. If Connacht win the Challenge Cup, they will qualify for the Heineken Cup for the first time.