Worcester 7 Harlequins 10: Richards' Quins keep woeful Worcester in a spin towards the drop

When it comes to Christmas spirit, Dean Richards can be positively Dickensian. "A win's a win, I suppose," he muttered as his Harlequins side trudged across a sodden Sixways surface to thank the travelling support tucked away in a high corner of the main stand. Even though the Londoners had prevailed for the first time in nine attempts and there was a Cornish pasty going free in the interview room, the Great Shambling Bear was in no mood for a knees-up. Bah humbug!

Then someone mentioned the referee, Wayne Barnes, and Richards underwent a Scrooge-like transformation. "This," he pronounced, "is the first time in weeks I haven't moaned about an official," he said. "I thought he was outstanding." And off he went into the darkness, munching joyfully on his pasty and preparing to distribute sackfuls of seasonal gifts to the poor and needy of the West Midlands.

Richards praises ref? Talk about a "man bites dog" moment. He was right, though: Barnes had been one of the star turns of a difficult afternoon, even though he consistently allowed Jordan Turner-Hall, the powerful young Harlequins centre, to get away with blue murder on the midfield obstruction front. (Every referee has a blind spot somewhere: this was his). When the weather deteriorated after the interval, the barrister from the Forest of Dean avoided deteriorating with it. Instead, he kept things going as best he could with a combination of sympathy and common sense. He will be the world's best one day, for sure.

There is always a "but", though not that Richards was in a mood to raise it, for this particular "but" favoured his side massively. After Loki Crichton's chip-and-chase try in the 81st minute brought a lamentable Worcester to within three points of the long-time leaders, Quins took an interminable amount of time to find their way back to halfway for the restart. Then, after Crichton had taken the bizarre decision to kick for touch, Tani Fuga hung around for a month of Sundays before throwing to the line-out. With three zeros illuminated on the "countdown clock", Steven So'oialo promptly grabbed the ball and hoofed it into the crowd.

It is not essential to be a dyed-in-the-wool Luddite to question the validity of the current method of timekeeping. Back in the good old days, a referee would have reacted to Quins' shenanigans by saying to himself: "If they're going to bugger about, I'll add two minutes at the end of the game." The countdown clock makes this awkward, if not impossible. Worcester were denied something like 90 seconds of rugby on Saturday, but technology does not work on the basis of "something like". Machines were introduced to reduce the room for human error. Sadly, they also reduce the room for human judgement.

Does rugby really want its players to spend the last five minutes of a match clock-watching, just so they can run down the contest to suit themselves? There is nothing more dispiriting than seeing a scrum-half run backwards from a set piece, swerve towards the nearest touchline and kick the ball out of the ground as a means of ending proceedings. During the World Cup quarter-final between France and New Zealand a game also controlled by Barnes the Tricolore scrum-half Jean-Baptiste Elissalde just about got away with it, but only because the swaggering All Blacks were the team on the rough end of it. On Saturday, it was not in the least amusing. Just sad. All things considered, though, Worcester would have needed a good deal more than 90 seconds to score a second try. For the entirety of the official 80-minute span, a first try seemed wholly beyond them.

It was clearly a game they had targeted for victory, what with their three recent All Blacks the wing Rico Gear, centre Sam Tuitupou and lock Greg Rawlinson in the starting line-up and Quins travelling in disarray. But their set pieces, usually so reliable, fell apart at important moments and they lacked precision at the ruck. They also struggled at nine and 10, where Matt Powell was outplayed by the excellent Andy Gomarsall and Shane "hot and cold" Drahm had one of his chillier days.

Mike Ruddock, ruthlessly installed as director of rugby last summer at the expense of the unfortunate John Brain, has some thinking to do. Worcester have yet to win a Premiership fixture this term, and face a horrible trip to Newcastle next time out.

They cannot even bank on the Six Nations Championship to provide a leg-up. Of their three league fixtures during the tournament only one, against Leicester in early March, involves a team likely to be badly hit by international calls.

At the weekend, there was a decent run or two from Tuitupou, a human pinball if ever there was one, and some impressive work from the teenage wing Miles Benjamin, but generally speaking they were never less dangerous than when in possession. And to think that Cecil Duckworth, the owner, is planning to expand the Sixways capacity next summer.

Quins, on the other hand, were none too shabby. Their tries, in the space of five minutes midway through the first half, were neatly constructed the first falling to the gung-ho Chris Robshaw down the short side, the second to Gary Botha after Nick Easter, outstanding at No 8, drove his way through the eye of a maul and they were strong in contact. Mike Ross, an outsized tight-head prop from Ireland, was particularly striking in this regard, although the tackle of the afternoon was made by the Springbok centre De Wet Barry, who felled Gear, an old Tri-Nations foe, with an absolute beauty.

That Easter did not last the game was a minor irritation to Brian Ashton, the watching England coach, but together with Gomarsall and the quicksilver David Strettle he booked his place in the Six Nations squad. Three Quins for the red rose army, then. Which is three more than Worcester will manage.

Worcester: Try Crichton; Conversion Crichton. Harlequins: Tries Robshaw, Botha.

Worcester: T Delport; R Gear, D Rasmussen, S Tuitupou, M Garvey (M Benjamin, 14); S Drahm (L Crichton, 69), M Powell (J Arr, 69); M Mullan (D Morris, 43), A Lutui (C Fortey, 54), T Taumoepeau, G Rawlinson, C Gillies (W Bowley, 72), T Wood, P Sanderson (capt), D Hickey (G Quinnell, 54).

Harlequins: M Brown; D Strettle, D Barry, J Turner-Hall, O Monye; C Malone, A Gomarsall (S So'oialo, 80); C Jones, G Botha (T Fuga, 74), M Ross, O Kohn (J Percival, 74), J Evans, C Robshaw, W Skinner, N Easter (capt; C Hala'Ufia, 58).

Referee: W Barnes (London).