Worcester Warriors 14pts, London Irish 23 (From Worcester News)

Worcester Warriors 14pts, London Irish 23

6:38pm Sunday 2nd September 2007 in Sport By Michael Reeves, twitter.com/michaelreevesWN

WHEN Cecil Duckworth handed over the Worcester Warr-iors reins to Mike Ruddock he had found a coach with a winning mentality.

He had guided Wales to their first Grand Slam in 29 years and last season he was helping his home village of Mumbles, near Swansea, romp to the Asda Welsh League Division Three South West title.

His first two outings with the Warriors saw the Sixways outfit finish runners-up in the Middlesex Sevens and beat Division One side Plymouth Albion so when Worcester were beaten by Premiership rivals London Irish in a pre-season friendly the proud Welshman had an air of disappointment about him.

And if the new Worcester director of rugby is feeling disappointed after a defeat in a friendly then it appears that the bar has been raised.

Ruddock was delighted with how his new charges had set about their tasks in the first-half and if he can get his players to cut out the errors they displayed after the interval then the future is looking very bright at Sixways.

Worcester had controlled the opening 40 minutes at Six-ways, defeat probably hadn't even crossed Ruddock's mind.

The former Newport Drag-ons director of rugby was forced into making two major late changes before Saturday's clash against the Exiles, with skipper Pat Sanderson pulling out with a minor leg injury and then during the warm-up fly-half Shane Drahm tweaked his hamstring.

But as Drahm was rested, up stepped 19-year-old Joe Carl-isle and the teenager shone.

His goal-kicking was on the whole excellent, he made inte-lligent breaks and when he needed to kick out of hand he found touch.

The Academy product, who turns 20 in December, gave the Warriors an early 6-0 lead with two penalties, but it was Marcel Garvey who nearly got the first try of the match.

The former Gloucester wing looks like he has finally rediscovered his form that led to the comparisons of rugby's answer to Wayne Rooney when he burst on to the scene with a hat-trick against Bris-tol five years ago and had he had a bit more luck when he chipped over the Irish defence the stocky flyer would have seen the ball bounce back towards him instead of away from him.

It wasn't just Ruddock's ba-ck-line that appeared to be in full flow, the front eight work-ed well at the set piece, they were tidy in the loose and carried the ball well.

There were of course a few stray passes from both sides, but there is still a couple more weeks before the start of the Guinness Premiership for all the wrinkles to be ironed out and if Ruddock can get his players performing like they did in the opening half then the Warriors won't be struggling like they did last year.

The first-half, however, end-ed with an Irish try.

Centre Nils Mordt broke for the Exiles and Topsy Ojo was on hand to finish things off in the corner.

Jeremy Staunton missed the extras before Carlisle sent Worcester in at the break 9-5 to the good.

But the second period started badly for Worcester as Sailosi Tagickibau went over in the opening minute and Staunton added the conversion to send the Exiles 12-9 up.

Carlisle put the Warriors back into the lead when making a dramatic dive over the line to cap a superb display, but for once the new star didn't have everything his own way as he missed his relatively easy conversion.

That was to be the Warriors last score as Staunton sent over a drop goal after missing a penalty to put the Exiles 15-14 up on 55 minutes and then five minutes later Tagickibau went over for his second score of the match. Staunton missed the extras. Staunton completed the win for the Irish six minutes from time with another penalty.

Worcester tried to reduce the deficit in the dying minutes of the game but Ryan Powell just could not get the ball grounded.

Warriors: Chris Pennell 6, Thinus Delport 6, Dale Rasmussen 6, Gary Trueman 6 (Mark Tucker 40 7), Marcel Garvey 7, Joe Carlisle 9, Matt Powell 7 (Ryan Powell 73), Tony Windo 6 (Darren Morris 6 60), Chris Fortey 7 (Ben Gotting 73), Tevita Taumoepeau 6, Phil Mur-phy 6 (Bowley 6 60), Craig Gillies 7, Tom Wood 6, James Collins 6, Gavin Quinnell 6 (Hickey 6 60).

London Irish: D Armitage (T De Vedia 40), T Ojo (E Hickey 77), M Ireland, N Mordt (D Shabbo 40), S Tagicakibau, J Staunton, P Hodgson (capt, W Fury 69), R Skuse (A Corbisiero 74), D Paice, F Rautenbach (D Murphy 40), N Kennedy (J Hudson 69), K Ro-che (G Johnson, 69), S Armitage (D Danaher 60), R Thorpe, P Murphy (A McCullen 64).

Referee: Mr D Changleng (SRU).

Attendance: 5,785.