JOHN Brain believes the burning desire for Premiership rugby is pushing Worcester Rugby Club to new playing heights.

The Sixways director of rugby was a satisfied man after watching his side blow away Wakefield with shuddering ease 64-19. However, he feels the National One pacesetters are all desperate to impress with promotion now a near certainty.

"We're getting to that dreaded time of year when people start to talk about contracts," said Brain.

"What we have is a squad full of players who are hungry to prove themselves. I know that most, if not all of the squad, will want to stay at Worcester next season. We would obviously like to keep as many as we possibly can.

"If we go up, and we're not there yet, we need to look at every position very, very carefully but those players all know that they are playing for their futures."

The former Gloucester lock took the result in his stride at College Grove, irritated somewhat with three conceded tries, but did accept that it was one of the performances of the season.

"We've talked about it before and I always go back to the performance at Plymouth as a highlight and obviously the win at Orrell was no mean achievement," he added.

"Certainly, though, away from home this has to be up there. Coming to Wakefield and disposing of them the way that we did was very impressive. Wakefield are fighting against relegation and they're desperate. They threw everything they had at us and we dealt with it very professionally and played very positively, bearing in mind the wet conditions."

Daren O'Leary enjoyed a storming afternoon at full back and Brain joked that he may try a new motivation technique in the future.

"We've got next weekend off and Daren's off to Tenerife. If that's the way he plays then he can go to Tenerife every week as far as I'm concerned!

"He was very good and all credit to him because he's finished moves off very well despite the conditions because they didn't make handling easy.

"Jon Hylton has had another good game as well. He's scored two tries and is improving every week. We saw Gary Trueman make a number of tries and he's a talented player, we all know that.

"He knows what he's got to do to improve his game but he's got the potential to be a Premiership quality centre and to go a long way in the game. He times his runs very well and is generally a threat when he receives the ball. He certainly made a big contribution against Wakefield."