Premiership: Worcester Warriors 27-13 Newcastle Falcons

Bryce Heem played a part in two of Worcester's tries

Newcastle missed the chance to move into a Premiership play-off place as Worcester completed a second-half comeback for a crucial win at Sixways.

The sides kicked two penalties apiece in a turgid first half, before Vereniki Goneva strolled over for the visitors.

Trailing 13-6 at the break, Worcester's David Denton scored from close range after a scrum to level the scores.

Pressure then told when Nick Schonert powered over and Scotland back-row Denton scored a third try to seal it.

After coming off the bench to take over kicking duties from Chris Pennell, who had kicked Warriors' first-half points, but missed three other attempts, fly-half Dorian Jones kicked all three of his conversions on his debut.

Following in the footsteps of his dad Kingsley Jones, who played in 2001-02, that made them the first father and son to play for Worcester in the professional era.

Worcester are now only nine points clear of bottom side London Irish, who picked up a bonus-point victory at Harlequins. But Warriors' fourth home triumph of the season lifts them to only a point behind 10th-placed Northampton.

Newcastle are fifth - two points adrift of fourth placed Wasps - with three matches remaining after only their second defeat in 10 Premiership games.

Worcester director of rugby Alan Solomons:

"Full marks to the players. They performed terrifically. The big thing for us was to maintain intensity, so that would reap the rewards.

"We have spoken dozens of times about building an innings. It's like in cricket - the openers build the innings, then numbers four, five and six make the runs.

"It's the same in rugby. If you can keep at it, you will reap the benefits in the back 20 minutes.

"We've got three games to go - all the opposition is quality opposition - and we've got to play really well in each game."

Newcastle director of rugby Dean Richards:

"Worcester were outstanding on the day. We had a lot of inaccuracies when we had the ball in hand, which meant we were defending a lot of the time.

"When you are defending a lot of the time against people like Ben Te'o, Jackson Willison and David Denton, it is going to tell, which ultimately it did.

"You look at the people in Worcester's squad. It is a fantastic squad. They should be in a far better position than they are.

"Had we had accuracies with ball in hand, then it might have been another thing, but we didn't."

Worcester Warriors: Pennell; Heem, Te'o, Willison, Adams; Shillcock, Arr; Bower, Singleton, Schonert, Barry, Spencer, Denton, Lewis, Van Velze (capt).

Replacements: Haupt, Milasinovich, Kerrod, Kitchener, Mama, Dowsett, Jones, Hammond.

Newcastle Falcons: Tait; Goneva, Harris, Matavesi, Sinoti; Flood, Stuart; Lockwood, Cooper, Wilson, Green, Robinson, Olmstead, Welch (capt), Latu.

Replacements: Lawson, Vickers, Davison, Witty, Chick, Hodgson, Waldouck, Radwan.

Referee: Christophe Ridley