By Griff
October 13 2011

With Worcester back in the Premiership it becomes that terrifying prospect - a league with no weak teams. The 09/10 season that saw the Warriors returned, briefly, to the National league was one of the most competitive. No disrespect to Leeds but they weren't the same proposition, last season, that Worcester are this.

With Worcester back in the Premiership it becomes that terrifying prospect - a league with no weak teams. The 09/10 season that saw the Warriors returned, briefly, to the National league was one of the most competitive. No disrespect to Leeds but they weren't the same proposition, last season, that Worcester are this.

The Warriors came to the MadStad with one of the best defensive records in the league - admitting only 6 tries is their previous 5 games. Admittedly their attacking record was even more sparse but it is clear that Richard Hill's game-plan hasn't varied much during their absence - stop the opposition scoring and be in with a chance.

From the off it was a high-intesity affair with both sides contesting strongly on the deck and the fly-halves - Bowden for Irish and the canny Andy Goode for Wuss - directing their troops, putting in kicks to attempt to get some territory. It was Irish with the early pressure, keeping the visitors pegged in their own half. The first try came from an almost classic move.

Scrum-half Darren Allinson picked-up from the base of the ruck just inside the Worcester half, passed to Bowden who released Daivd Paice, breaking the line like every hooker knows how... Paice, not trying to live-up to his surname, failed to back himself and had to pop the ball to Steve Shingler at inside centre to complete the move. Shingler, nearly caught by the rapid Marcel Garvey kept his composure to score. He was caught accidentally by Andy Goode's boot in the act and spent the rest of the afternoon with a vaseline cap on a head-wound that Red Adair would have been proud of.

Tom Homer added the extra points to give Irish a 7 - 0 lead.

Worcester came straight back at Irish, though, a spritely run and chip-ahead by Goode was defended illegally with Darren Allinson - adjudged to have pulled a Worcester player back - who spent the next ten minutes in the sin-bin.

The visitors took full advatage of the lack of Irish numbers almost immediately. Pushing into the home half where debutante scrum-half Ollie Frost feeding Errie Claassens coming into the line from full-back and cutting the newly reduced Irish bacline apart to release Miles Benjamin to sprint for the visitors' first score.

Goode kicked the conversion to level the scores 7 - 7.

Despite being a man-down the Exiles took the fight to the Warriors, a series of moves, including a big driving maul from the forwards took the men-in-green deep into Worcester territory pushing for the try-line. The move was stopped but not before a defender was caught off-side in front of the posts giving Tom Homer and easy kick to regain the lead.

The action continued with a period of back-and-forth open play with neither side managing to make ground without losing the ball or kicking it away and letting the other side re-take the territory. An Irish scrum just insided the Worcester half led to referee JP Doyle penalising visiting tight-head Tevita Taumoepeau for boring-in. Homer extended the lead.

The even-play continued all over the field with no-one making real in-roads. Worcester were starting to put some pressure on and from an Warriors line-out Declan Danaher was spotted pulling the Worcester jumper down and Andy Goode reduced the defecit to 3 points.

Irish, having weathered an onslaught from Worcester, started to apply their own pressure. The play stayed open but there was definite intent from the Exiles to tear holes in the Worcester defence. A fantastic sniping run from Dan Bowden made the visitors scramble madly - caught offside in Neil Best's case allowing Homer to kick Irish back 6 points ahead.

As the first-half drew to a close, though, the visitors seemed keen to redress the score-line as Worcester pretty-much set-up camp in the Irish half. Some solid defending held them firm but Irish couldn't seem to get their hands on the ball to relieve the pressure. When Topsy Ojo did managed to get a kick deep into the Worcester half the Warriors simply managed to put move-after-move together the return to the Irish half.

A thrust by Chris Jones came from a scrum won against the head with the number 8 crossing the white-wash only to be held-up by a Herculean effort from Jamie Gibson ably assisted by Darren Allinson. As the teams left the field you can only wonder about the conversation between Jones and his hooker Ed Skirvington who was open outside the ex-Sale man for the try.

With the score a 16 - 10 to Irish the home-side could consider themselves lucky to be ahead.

Either the shock of the so-nearly-try or a hair-dryer session from Toby during the break meant it was Irish that came-out firing in the second half. Virtually all the early play was green but the Worcester defence put-up a solid wall. Irish kept patient, though, knowing that keeping possession would most-likely lever some points eventually.

And so it was to be, Hala'ufia picked-up from the back of a scrum and drove-on. Chris was tackled and both Chris Jones and Neil Best came round the ruck, the latter being penalised. Dan Bowden put the kick into the corner (despite it being easily kickable) and from the line-out Worcester knocked-on. The scrum was a carbon-copy - Hala'ufia picking from the base and tearing through the Warriors like they weren't there. It was a fantastic try for the big Tongan reminding us how much we're going to miss him for the next 7 weeks following the incident in Gloucester.

With the try so close to the posts Tom wasn't going to miss the kick so Irish took a 23 - 10 lead.

It didn't take long for the home-side to stretch that lead further. From the restart Irish shut-down any idea Worcester had of attacking and soon won the ball back. A fine line from Shingler got the Exiles into the Worcester half and a cheeky dummy from Bowden release Jonathan Joseph to cut the Warriors' backline to ribbons for another superb try. Again Tom added the two and Irish looked unbeatable at 30 -10.

Worcester, to their credit, simply didn't give-up and found their attacking moves again. With Declan Danaher temporarily replaced by Alex Gray for a cut on his cheek the visitors took full advantage and a series of great passes saw Marcel Garvey scamper over the try-line with Goode adding the extras.

Irish weren't done yet either, a period of long pressure nearly got the Exiles over for the bonus-point but, with solid defending, Worcester kept them out and even managed to isolate JJ. From the resulting penalty Goode, uncharacteristically missed-touch. His mis-cue was caught by Shingler who cut a line across the half-way line and, very cutely dummied to drop-goal. The pause this caused allowed a quick pop to a charging Tom Homer who beat the first line of defence and had only the full-back and scrambling defence to beat. Homer clearly wasn't having any truck with being stopped, cutting inside and scoring a candidate for the try of the season. He duly converted and it looked like the five points were in-the-bag with 20 minutes still to play.

The first fifteen of those minutes were eaten-up with more even, open, possibly-scrappy play both sides making a raft of substitutions but eventually Irish found themselves with a little more posession, teritory and a platform. Patient build-up play teased the Worcester defence as play moved back and forth across the Worcester red-zone. Chris Hala'ufia made the difference taking-on two defenders and riding the huge tackle to be able to offload to Adam Thompstone for a try out wide on the left. Homer finally missed a kick, failing the conversion just to show he is actually human.

From this point Irish had pertty-much given up, Worcester, to their credit, had not. In the final play of the match the Warriors won a penalty from a scrum in their own half. The quick tap was spun quickly through the hands and that man Garvey again cut through the Irish defence - wrong-footing Guy Armitage and beating a scrambling Paul Hodgson to score a consolation try which was subsequently converted by Goode-replacement Joe Carlisle.

42 - 24 was a fine result for Irish, taking them to fourth in the premiership. Nearly doubling the Warriors tries-against tally in one match was the obvious positive - showing good attacking form. A worry for Toby Booth and Justin Bishop will be the tries Irish leaked, though.