Saturday, August 27, 2005

WORCESTER Warriors rounded off their impressive pre-season programme in style with a potent performance and a 26-7 win ag-ainst Italian side Benetton Treviso.

But the match was overshadowed by a serious injury to prop Lee Fortey, who dislocated his shoulder when the scrum collapsed near the end of the match.

Throughout the game, Worcester looked powerful and organised up front, while the backs showed plenty of pace and verve.

The only blots on their copybook were the yellow cards dished out to Thomas Lombard, Siaosi Vaili and Chris Horsman.

Those sin-binnings, coupled with numerous substitutions, made it difficult for Warriors to establish any pattern.

But there was more than enough to impress a passionate Sixways crowd and new head coach Anthony Eddy. He said: "I thought we had a lot more opportunities than the opposition. Our forwards played well in patches. We could have capitalised on some more opportunities that we created.

"I think we probably played a little bit faster than Treviso. We've done a lot of work on fitness and that's something we're trying to capitalise on.

Eddy and Brain now plan to watch a video of this game and the previous week's match at Llanelli before deciding what team to pick for Sunday's opening Premiership match at home to Gloucester.

One player who did his chances no harm was former Cherry and White Andy Gomarsall, who nipped in for a pair of first-half tries to mark a promising debut at scrum half.

Gomarsall's job was made that much easier by a pack that looks set to impose itself on the strongest of oppositions this year.

But he showed plenty of guile and speed of thought to twice dart around the blindside of the scrum for scores.

Warriors had got off to the best possible start when, after just two minutes, Craig Gillies secured the ball from a line-out on the five-metre line, which allowed Pat Sanderson to touch down following a driving maul.

In between Gomarsall's two tries, Salvatore Garozzo steamed over to give the Italians a score that their stylish rugby deserved.

If Warriors' forwards had stolen the show in the first half, then the backs managed to express themselves in the second.

Uche Oduoza was a constant threat on the left wing. On the other side of the pitch, Jonny Hylton, who missed almost all of last season through injury, showed that none of his pace has deserted him as he stormed over for a late try.