London Irish rugby director Conor O'Shea breathed a huge sigh of relief tonight after seeing the Exiles book their first Twickenham cup final appearance for 22 years.

Irish had to withstand a superb Harlequins fightback at the Stoop, and were indebted to a couple of late Barry Everitt penalties for their 32-27 Powergen Cup semi-final success.

It was a close-run thing, as Quins wiped out a 26-point deficit to lead 27-26 entering the closing 10 minutes.

Irish though, dug deep when it mattered, establishing the field positions from which Everitt prospered.

"It's hats off to the team for coming back the way they did in the end," O'Shea said.

"We panicked a bit on the ball, and we allowed Quins into danger areas, and you know that with someone like Paul Burke in their team, he is capable of putting them back into contention.

"I just had a horrible vision that we were going to loose a classic cup tie, and it would have been pretty devastating to lose a 26-0 lead.

"But the final (on April 20) is going to be a great, great day for the club, and I would imagine that a lot of people will travel over from Ireland."

Irish are also on course to reach the European Shield final - they play Welsh club Pontypridd next month - while they remain in the Zurich Premiership's top five.

Quins now only have a relegation battle to concentrate on - having lost their last eight league games, they currently prop up the Premiership.

"Even though we were 26-10 down at half time, I believed that we could win," said Quins coach Mark Evans.

"But we expected a lot of energy to go into the lead at 27-26, and in the end, we lost a bit of momentum and Irish played well during those final 10 minutes."

Evans felt that referee Steve Leyshon did not play enough second half injury time, especially as there was a five-minute stoppage when Quins full-back David Slemen suffered an injury that saw him stretchered off and subsequently taken to hospital for precautionary X-rays.

"There is no conspiracy theory here, but the amount of injury time played was wrong.

"Maybe in one off games like a cup semi-final, there should be independent time keeping," Evans added.

"That was a short second half - Sir Alex Ferguson would have been appalled."

Everitt was the Irish hero, kicking 22 points on his 26th birthday, while centre Brendan Venter and full-back Michael Horak also touched down.

Quins collected three tries, though lock Alex Codling, hooker Ace Tiatia and number eight Tony Diprose with Burke slotting two penalties and three conversions.