DEFIANT scrum-half Luke Baldwin believes “there’s no reason” why Worcester Warriors can’t repeat last season’s heroics at former champions Harlequins.

Warriors head to Twickenham Stoop on Saturday (3pm) seeking their first Aviva Premiership away win since a hard-fought 21-15 victory at Quins in March.

Quins are eighth in the table, three points and three places better off than Warriors, who are expected to welcome back skipper Gerrit-Jan van Velze from concussion.

Baldwin impressed in Warriors’ 25-24 European Challenge Cup defeat to French Top 14 outfit Brive on Saturday and picked up the man-of-the-match honour.

“Harlequins are not doing as well as they have done in previous seasons but are a very good team.

"It’s away from home and they’ve got some quality players,” said 26-year-old Baldwin, who has come off the bench four times in the Premiership this campaign.

“But we did beat them at their place last season and are obviously hoping we will do it again.

“Any points away from home are great and we’ve gone to Quins before and beaten them so there’s no reason why we can’t do it again.”

South African duo van Velze and Wynand Olivier both scored tries in the fixture at the Stoop last season, which took place during the Six Nations programme.

But Warriors have beaten only London Irish and Newcastle Falcons since that success and lost seven and drawn two of their 11 league matches.

“We’ve performed well enough to have beaten every team we’ve played this season,” said Baldwin, who was restricted to seven Premiership appearances  last term.

“We are talking a lot at the moment about being a competitive side but that needs to start to change to actually beating teams.

“We have done OK (in the Premiership so far) but we’ve underperformed because we drew with Gloucester and Sale and home wins against them would have put us more mid-table. We have to make sure we convert results into winning habits.”

Baldwin and the experienced Jonny Arr look set to battle it out for the scrum-half jersey because Francois Hougaard needs a shoulder operation.

Hougaard, who inspired Warriors to four successive top-tier wins for the first time last term, returned from Test duty with South Africa with an undiagnosed injury and has been ruled out for between 10 to 12 weeks.

“It’s unfortunate what has happened to Francois but that’s the nature of the sport and last year my opportunity came when Jonny got injured,” said Baldwin.

“We’ve got 10 to 12 weeks to do what we can to make sure we are putting our front foot forward for when Francois comes back because he’s a quality player.”

Warriors’ injury woes continued against Brive with fly-half Tom Heathcote (concussion) stretchered off after a collision, while hooker Matti Williams and lock Christian Scotland-Williamson (knee) were also replaced.

Baldwin lives with Heathcote and was on the spot when his team-mate was knocked unconscious in a 50th-minute collision.

“I was right there at the time and Tom was out cold but he’s fine now,” said Baldwin.

“The referee made a call and you have to back the call of the referee.

“To me, it looked like it was shoulder on head but the argument was it was shoulder on ball and Tom just happened to sink into it.”