DEAFENING roars from the Sixways crowd gave Worcester Warriors’ players “an added buzz” and allowed them to survive a last-ditch onslaught against Gloucester.

Head coach Carl Hogg paid tribute to home fans in the 8,905-strong crowd after Warriors held out for a 23-23 draw against the Cherry and Whites in the Aviva Premiership.

Warriors were rocked by the 52nd-minute dismissal of flanker Alafoti Fa’osiliva and let slip a 20-9 advantage as Gloucester piled forward for the win in the dying moments.

Hogg said: “If we can get big crowds like we do under the lights at Sixways, it gives us an added buzz and that’s what allowed the guys to hold on in the last period of play.

“The challenge for us as a playing group is to engage with the crowd.

“Ironically, before the game we talked about getting off to a fast start and getting the crowd involved.

“But it happened the opposite way around with Gloucester getting off to a fast start. We needed to dig in.”

Hogg also felt the club’s new state-of-the-art artificial pitch helped his side as they dominated the scrum and scored three well-taken tries.

Gloucester also bagged a couple of touchdowns during a feast of fast-flowing rugby in the first Premiership match on the new surface.

“It was a fast game and the ball flew around and I definitely think we got the upper hand at scrum-time,” said Hogg.

“A significant amount of penalties from that allowed us to hold high field position and that was really positive.

“You could also see how quickly the ball came up from the breakdown and the tackle area, so defensively you need to get numbers on your feet and stay very patient in defence. That’s going to be the key to success on this surface.”

But Hogg conceded: “I was disappointed with the outcome. We had every intention of starting big at Sixways on the new pitch and getting a positive result on the board. We need to challenge ourselves to be more accurate.”