By BrianC
September 8 2005

Through a combination of circumstances, we have been through what must be just about the longest possible period since our last home game. This Sunday we are back at The Madejski Stadium again for the first time since our game against Bath on 24th April, a total gap of 19 weeks.

Our fixture is against Worcester Warriors whose surprised many people, not least this author, by the strong showing they put up both on and off field last season.

We played Worcester three times last season. At the equivalent fixture last November we had, by our recent standards, a comfortable enough 25 - 15 victory. In our last match before Christmas we scraped a 7 - 9 victory at their Sixways ground in the Powergen Cup. Our third meeting, again at Sixways, on New Years Day saw us go down 16 - 6 in what many of those who were there have come to regard as our most dismal performance of 04/05.

At the start of this season Worcester were one of only two clubs, the other being Bristol, who the bookmakers rated lower than us. Last weekend, we put on an impressive display comfortably beating Leeds at Twickenham, Worcester drew at home to West Country rivals Gloucester in front of the Sky TV cameras. Whilst it is too soon to see a pattern to the season initial signs are that we might be a force to be reckoned with.

Truth be told this Worcester side does, on paper, look to be weaker than that of last season. Of the signings they have made in the close season a few do catch the eye. Argentinian, Emiliano Bergamaschi, could be one of the signings of the season. He is joined by Shane Drahm who kicked us to defeat in the dying seconds of our game against Northampton last season and Andy Gomarsall, late of Gloucester. Set against this they have lost a raft of players, not least Ben Gollings who has returned to Australia. Having said that, 

Of our ten games at The Madejski last season we managed only three victories. One of these was against Sundays opposition. If we are to stand any chance of seeing crowd growth again this season we will need to see a substantial improvement over last season's home record. The long suffering home support needs something to cheer. With a fair wind they might just have it come Sunday afternoon.