Goode: Now it’s time for Warriors to kick off in earnest (From Worcester News)

Goode: Now it’s time for Warriors to kick off in earnest

9:40am Friday 14th September 2012 in Sport By Tom Guest, @tomguestWN #WENsport

ANDY Goode insists victory over Gloucester would be just the springboard Worcester need to launch their Aviva Premiership campaign.

With Warriors still looking for their first win of the season, tomorrow’s Six-ways showdown has taken on added significance for Richard Hill’s men.

Not only would success against their local rivals be a major shot in the arm but it has the potential to ignite their campaign ahe-ad of matches against Northampton Saints and London Irish later this month.

The Warriors have done it before against the men from Kingsholm on home soil, triumphing 21-15 back in January, and Goode believes they can do it again.

“It will give the side a massive boost to win aga-inst Gloucester,” the former England fly-half said. “We know we have to win our home games if we are going to do well this season.

“We’re disappointed with the Bath one but you have to set your stall out and we’ll be trying to right the wrong of losing to Bath on the opening day.

“We beat Gloucester at home last year. They got a good victory away to Lon-don Irish last weekend but we know that if we perform well we can beat them and hopefully that will happen.

“We’re disappointed but excited with how we’re playing and once we get that win, I’m sure more will follow.”

Goode added: “Last year we were pretty hard to beat and our defence was just solid but our attack has come on leaps and bounds this year and that will continue.

“The people who watched the Bath and Leicester matches will have seen our new attacking edge, they’re always good games to watch. “We’re obviously disappointed with the two defeats but there’s a lot of positive signs coming out of our performances.

“The mood is positive but we know we need to get our first victory and we’re working hard in training to do it.”

However, one down side to the Warriors’ displays to date has been their concession of penalties and subsequent yellow cards.

Captain Dean Schofield was sent to the sin bin on his debut against Bath, while full-back Chris Pennell and scrum-half Shaun Perry both sat out the action for 10 minutes at Leicester Tigers.

Head coach Hill said: “The Chris Pennell yellow card was pretty harsh but Shaun Perry gave some back-chat to the referee and you can’t do that.

“We pride ourselves in rugby union that you respect the referee and he’s apologised in front of the group and we move on. But that’s not acceptable from anybody and we’ve all talked about discipline. “We conceded marginally fewer penalties at Leicester – 13 compared to 16 against Bath – so we have reduced it. Some of those against Leicester were in the scrum, which distorted it a bit.

“So against Gloucester we have to work very hard to ensure the 15 players stay on the field for the whole game.”