DIRECTOR of rugby Dean Ryan has challenged experienced prop James Johnston to compete for a starting spot with Nick Schonert.

The big Samoan made his first Aviva Premiership start for Warriors in their 50-12 battering against high-flying Exeter Chiefs at Sandy Park.

Johnson had previously made nine substitute appearances since joining Warriors in January after an injury-hit spell at Wasps.

But the 30-year-old, who amassed 104 Premiership appearances for Saracens and Harlequins, struggled to hold the scrum against Chiefs and was yellow-carded early on.

“You could see that as soon as we lost the scrum, we lost field position and ended up under pressure,” recalled Ryan.

“As soon as you can make the scrum equal, you force the opposition to try something else against you but we weren’t able to do that against Exeter.”

The highly-rated Schonert missed the Chiefs match after suffering a head injury in Worcester’s crucial 12-6 win against bottom-of-the-table London Irish.

“We have always known that James was able to come in and solve a problem behind Nick, which was the last 20 minutes, and he’s done that,” added Ryan.

“The challenge for James now is to become a starting player when everyone else is fresh and still be able to give us the same impact he does when he comes on later in games.

“We have always known he had a lack of rugby over a significant period of time and, in some ways, that’s why he became available to us.

"We now have to start to work with him on being able to compete with Nick.”