WORCESTER Warriors are sweating over the fitness of influential scrum-half Francois Hougaard ahead of Saturday’s derby with Gloucester (3pm).

The South Africa international sustained a blow to his ankle in last Saturday’s “brutal” clash at Exeter Chiefs where Warriors hung on to claim a memorable 6-5 victory.

Hougaard played the full 80 minutes of the Aviva Premiership encounter but now faces a battle to be fit to face local rivals Gloucester.

Director of rugby Alan Solomons said: “We will wait and see how Francois travels and we will make a decision later in the week.

“There are some knocks, bumps and bruises in the squad. But the team will train today and tomorrow and we will see how things go.

“We made about 230 tackles on Saturday so it was fairly brutal.”

If Hougaard does not recover in time, Luke Baldwin could make his first league start this season.

Warriors have been boosted by the return of experienced number nine Jonny Arr who has recovered from concussion.

The 29-year-old has not played for Warriors since he was stretchered off in their 41-35 defeat to Harlequins in October with a head injury.

But Solomons said he was now available for selection after featuring in the first half of Birmingham Moseley’s 15-10 win over Bishop Stortford in National One last weekend.

“Jonny has been out for a while and needed the game-time,” Solomons said.

“Our breakdown coach Simon Cross works at Moseley and he and Richard Protherough were very kind and organised everything for us.

“He played 40 minutes and came through unscathed.

“He did pop over to Moseley last Thursday which I thought was important as he was joining a new team and they needed to meet him before the game.

“But he has been training with us all the time and he is available for selection for this weekend.”

Lock Will Spencer was forced to pull out of Warriors’ battle at Exeter through illness but is expected to be back to tackle Gloucester.

Skipper Donncha O’Callaghan is also poised to lead his team despite needing stitches in his head after coming off at half-time against Chiefs.

“Donncha is absolutely fine,” Solomons said.

“He needed a couple of stitches in his head.

“We also lost Will at midday which was quite a big loss to us so we stuck with the decision to have six forwards and two backs on the bench.

“Donncha and Anton Bresler both had good 40 minutes so for all the players, particularly up front, that was a team contribution.”

He added: “Will should be fit for the weekend.

“Unfortunately he had to withdraw which was not the finest thing to happen but the lads stepped up and did really well.

“Matti Williams came off the bench and in 10 minutes he had 17 involvements which was not bad.”