WARRIORS may have lost the battle of Welford Road, but such experiences will help them achieve future victories in the Aviva Premiership war, according to lock forward James Percival.

The talismanic second row never takes a backward step when he leads Warriors into the trenches and believes there is a strong bond developing between the Sixways band of brothers.

While he was disappointed to leave the Leicester pitch on the wrong end of a heavy defeat, Percival insists that type of backs-to-the-wall performance after having Andy Goode sent off shows the never-say-die spirit at Sixways.

He said: “We were all there at Leicester and know we will fight for each other. As the old saying goes, it was a battle. If you have a soldier beside you that you know you can count on, then you’d go to war with them.

“I came off that pitch at Welford Road having lost, but knowing I have a bond with all my team-mates that keeps getting stronger.

“It will be character building. When we have another hard time on the pitch, we can look back at what we did at Leicester.

“We had 14 men for much of the game, but kept fighting to the end and refused to give in. Maybe, in the past, Worcester would have given in, but one to 23 refused to give in and there’s a lot to be said for that.

“If you look at how we played in the first 15 to 20 minutes, we put up a good fight and it could have been a tighter game but for one or two mistakes we made and a couple of refereeing decisions that went against us.”

Percival added: “If you look at our past games, the only bad ones we’ve had were when we got beaten heavily at home by Gloucester early in the season, away at London Irish, and now at Leicester, but we’ve always bounced back from those results.

“We’ve now got a free weekend but we can’t just forget about the Leicester game. We’ve got a fortnight of hurt to get through before the Exeter game, but we’ve got a strong bond and we are a tighter group for it and we’ve taken that into training this week.

“We will take that into the matches with Exeter and London Irish and we want to maintain our unbeaten record at Sixways this year and then take that into next season.”