SATURDAY’S trip to Exeter Chiefs will be the ideal barometer to measure Worcester Warriors’ progress, according to director of rugby Dean Ryan (3pm).

Warriors have won their last four Aviva Premiership matches to open up a healthy 16-point cushion over bottom club London Irish.

But Warriors have never won at Exeter’s Sandy Park headquarters in the top tier.

In fact, Chiefs have won all of their seven previous Premiership battles between the clubs.

Exeter maintained their stranglehold over Warriors with a 30-15 victory at Sixways at the end of January.

Ryan said: “I think we have held our heads high during this nine-match period when everyone else wanted to make it about league safety.

“We’ve now got Exeter who were faster of thought when they came and took us in January.

“We have to see if we have moved on.

“Over the last four or five weeks we’ve played opponents and shown how much progress we’ve made.

"Now we have to see if we can cope away from home against a side as good as Exeter.”

Exeter surrendered top spot in the Premiership after going down 36-18 to defending champions Saracens last weekend.

But Chiefs have lost only once at home in 15 months and are aiming to cement a top-four spot to secure a play-off spot.

Worcester’s last victory over Chiefs in any competition was a 25-14 success at the County Ground in March 2004.

Ryan said: “Exeter were in the situation last weekend where the windy weather conditions probably took away a lot of their strengths against a Saracens side built for that sort of contest.

“I don’t think Exeter will fret too much about it but they have a European Champions Cup quarter-final around the corner so there’s a lot they will need to get right to be going into that with confidence.

“They are dangerous in Exeter so I am really looking forward to seeing how much we have moved on.

“We were pretty competitive in the first meeting with them other than at the speed they did things and the challenge they placed on how quickly they saw the game.”

Warriors are sweating over the fitness of prop Nick Schonert and flankers Phil Dowson and Carl Kirwan who suffered bangs on the head in last Saturday’s 12-6 win against London Irish.

But fly-half Tom Heathcote, who struggled through last Saturday's 12-6 win against London Irish, is OK, according to Ryan.

"Tom has been training all week," said Ryan.

"He’s had a bit of a neck problem with some spasm but he’s fine and has trained all week."

Exeter will be missing Wales forward Tomas Francis who is serving an eight-week ban after appearing to touch the eye area of England's Dan Cole in the Six Nations.

“London Irish’s scrum was one of the fast track scrums over the last five or six weeks and have caused a huge amount of problems but I think we did a pretty good job to nullify that.

“I watched Exeter play against Saracens and I will be interest to see who they select.

“They are obviously missing Francis who is a cornerstone for them and we will see if we can get parity and create a bit of pressure."

Ryan added: “I am quite keen to see how we have moved on if we can close that gap and if that competitiveness goes for longer.

"We were probably in good shape for 50 to 55 minutes in the first game and then they scored two or three tries and the game went away from us.

"I am really looking for us to step up and see the progress we’ve made."