NIGEL Redman praised the impact of Worcester’s second-half replacements as Warriors produced a Jekyll and Hyde performance against Scarlets in the LV= Cup.

A dire opening 40 minutes from the hosts was followed by a superb second that featured tries from Ben Howard, Semisi Taulava, Jake Abbott and Neil Best to claim maximum points at Sixways.

Redman heralded replacements Andy Goode and Best as they helped turn the tide for Warriors.

The Warriors forwards coach said: “Goodey came on and gave us some life playing at 10 with Joe at 12.

“They started to run the game and it allowed us to run off it, we brought our forwards into the game and players like Jake and Ed Shervington had good games. Chris Jones at the end was still going strong and it was great to see him diving on the ball to win the game.”

He added: “Neil is one of the game’s characters and is also a wonderful rugby player. To see him coming on and making that sort of impact, particularly as he has had a bad injury this season, was wonderful.”

Redman also dismissed any fears over the half-time substitutions of Nikki Walker and Jon Clarke and revealed they were pre-planned.

He said: “We were always going to take Nikki and Jon off at half-time. It was only right that they had 40 minutes, they were long-term substitutions rather than injury related.”

He added: “We had a patchy first-half where players were getting used to playing with each other. In the second-half, I thought we played some good stuff and put together some really good passages of play. Once again we scored four tries which was a testament to the intent of the players.

“One of our objectives was to score four tries, to pass and put the ball out in front so we could run onto it at pace and power.

“By the end we had a lot of good examples of that.

“I thought both sides struggled in the first-half to get flow going. We made some fundamental errors that didn’t help.

“At half-time we spoke about it and we came out and were far more physical at the breakdown.

“We needed to get our ball-carriers out in front so they gave us targets. We also needed to pass more and I felt that was restricted in the first-half.

“Once we started to play our game and come onto the ball with pace and power I felt we played at tempo and got stronger.”