AN ALLEGATION of homophobia marred Worcester Warriors’ Aviva Premiership clash with Sale Sharks at the AJ Bell Stadium.

Fly-half Jamie Shillcock remonstrated with officials on 55 minutes after claiming he had heard a “homophobic slur” from a Sale player.

It is not known what was said or who it was directed to but the 20-year-old’s complaint to referee Andrew Jackson was picked up on the ref link.

The matter is now expected to be dealt with by the independent citing commissioner.

Immediately after the match, which Worcester lost 58-25, Warriors boss Alan Solomons and Sale chief Steve Diamond said they were unaware of the incident.

“I don’t know anything about it,” Solomons said.

“There is a good citing process and I think we will leave that to the citing commissioner to deal with.”

Diamond was keen to highlight a collision between Alafoti Fa’osilivia and Ben Curry in the first half.

“I have not heard anything,” said Diamond on the accusation of a homophobic slur.

“I saw (a Worcester player) elbow Ben Curry under the chin and the referee did not do anything about that.

“Maybe the citing officer will look at that, but as for a homophobic slur I have never heard anything like that.”

Josh Adams notched a brace and Jackson Willison went over but Sale proved too hot to handle as they crossed the whitewash eight times in the home triumph.

Diamond said he was “chuffed” to deny Warriors a bonus point and felt their opponents “could not live” with the pace of his team.

“In the first half especially we were dominant in every area and then it was difficult for them to come back into it,” Diamond said.

“What we did really well was manage to get great, quick ball out to the wings.

“Without sounding patronising Worcester kept trying and had a good go but they could not live with the pace of Marland (Yarde), Mike (Haley) and Denny (Solomona) with Faf (de Klerk) and AJ (MacGinty) controlling it.”