Saturday, November 1, 2003

THE validity of English rugby's premier cup competition was questioned once again as Worcester bowed out.

The Warriors, having fielded a second string side at College Grove, expectedly crashed out of the Powergen Cup at the fifth round stage and the only tears to be found were ones of joy.

Worcester have long since made their intentions clear over this competition. It is a mere distraction from the primary goal of promotion to the Premiership.

A potentially bruising trip to Pertemps Bees in the sixth round was never going to give coaches John Brain and Andy Keast any incentive for victory and so it proved.

Ironically, the players did their best to win the match and had Jon Higgins' penalty, in the fifth minute of stoppage time, sailed over it would have given Worcester another cup headache.

"A loss is never OK," said Brain, Worcester's director of rugby. "It's not the end of the world, however. We've put in a number of young players with little or no experience of that standard of rugby.

"If there was one game to lose this season, however, this would be the one. Now we know what we have in front of us and don't have the distraction of taking the same team to Birmingham.

"If we'd won at Wakefield, we would have gone to Birmingham who would have had a free shot at us. I think, though, that the boys did well in the second half because at 18-5 down at half time, we could have been looking at an embarrassing score-line."

That it wasn't was thanks to a much better tempo in that second period and tries from Chris Garrard and Rhodri McAtee, both courtesy of Higgins' incisive breaks. They also shut out the home side in that 40-minute period, all the more impressive after Lee Fortey's 38th minute yellow card.

Academy starlet Martin Freeman had earlier made a name for himself in the first period when he dived over following a magnificent 70-metre burst from the outstanding Matt Evans. Freeman looks understandably raw but is a massive prospect with his power and pace.

Wakefield, though, dominated that opening half and chalked up their 18 points thanks to tries from Mark Kirkby and Mark Sowerby while fly half Peter Murphy added two penalties and a conversion.

The Warriors looked second best most of the afternoon but, after the double second half strike and a Higgins conversion, the fly half stepped up, in the 85th minute, to seal an unlikely win.

Ultimately, Higgins scuffed the kick and the coaches could relax again. It was an extraordinary end to a quite extraordinary day.

Worcester: Hylton 5; Freeman 6, Officer 6, Mountford 6, Garrard 6; Higgins 7, Powell 7; Warren 6, Clunis 5, Fortey 5, Zaltzman 6, Percival 6, Gabey 6, Mason7, LEVANS 8.

Replacements: McAtee 6 (Powell 63), Brown, Davies, Hall, Windo, Hopley (Evans 80), Bates.

Man of the match: Matt Evans - phenomenal pace and work rate.