Now I’ll admit that I was really looking forward to my visit to Sixways and as such fate decided to punish my eagerness with a fairly nasty case of flu. So it was with heavy head and light kidneys that I ventured forth into a wintery night. Having followed the up-grading of their East stand (now the Slick Systems Stand) I managed to get a seat in the hard core of their support. Heavily disguised with Trews, away shirt et al the banter was immediate and quite funny and in the true spirit of the game.

With Sky graciously allowing the game to proceed, Worcester showed that they were in it to win it from the kick-off with the chase introducing Will Skinner to the ground and forcing a penalty which was kicked for a lineout. Despite a lot of pressure the defence held firm but Worcester came away with three points. I’ll admit that, early in the game though it was, I was worried that Worcester may be more up for it than us.

What happened next eased my mind somewhat. The three tries in five minutes were sublime and seemed to show case what Quin’s is all about. I think the most telling thing was the reactions of the supporters around me. To begin with they had been in full voice but the first try silenced them. With the second there were questions of whether it was a scrum or penalty and there was disbelief when the TMO was signalled and the try given and it was much the same with the third. I think the term for the home support is shell-shocked. The fact that the ball seemed to pass through the hands of every player at speed and from the tackle answered the prayers of every Quin’s supporter, despite the slippery conditions this is how Quin’s play and it was good!

Worcester did make spirited come back, and I’ll admit I had feared that instead blowing a lead in the second half we might manage it in the first, however with Malone and Ugo combining for the bonus point try I felt relief that we would leave with at least one point. I wasn’t going to get my hopes up that we could hold onto the lead (you can tell I am a bit more pessimistic at the moment, I put it down to the man flu).

My pessimism seemed justified as Worcester scored immediately after the break. Thankfully both teams were playing running rugby rather than the aerial ping pong which dogged the second half at the Irish match. I was quite surprised by this as the rain was swirling around the ground and may well have contributed to number of handling errors by both sides. Latham at one point incensed when a nifty off-load was knocked on. A Malone penalty keeping a ten point gap until the final ten minutes when Guest was sin-binned and Worcester converted the resulting penalty. Luckily we held out for morale boosting win.

On the way back a blow out on the motorway meant that I had fifty minutes of standing on the hard shoulder in the freezing cold and wet to contemplate the game and the ground (especially when the team zipped past). Sixways is on route to being a top ground. The supporters are great and apart from the last penalty kick (which I put down to pure frustration) you could hear a pin drop at every kick. All in all I am very happy with a bonus point win against a side whom (as Wasps found out) can be a bit of a banana skin for any team, especially at home. A worrying trend of scoring a large number of points and then letting the opposition back into the game needs to be looked at. I can only assume that the players are shocked about being the lead and are not quite sure what to do next.

On the plus side we have a very fast team, possibly the fastest in the premiership, and the Mike Brown try showed that all the team have good handling skills which should be able to open up any defence. Also as one Worcester supporter said as another Worcester attack was stopped “if we could tackle like that we wouldn’t be losing”. He had a point, our defence at times can be awesome. The place kicking wasn’t great (I lost track of how many were missed) but the kicking from hand made up for it (both of Ugo’s tries were from nifty little kicks ahead). We’re getting spoiled as I’m sure we along with Irish and Bath have one of the most exciting playing styles in the premiership. Let’s hope the team on Sunday can prove a point against Osprey’s and carry on the winning ways.

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