Worcester Warriors 20, Wasps 19 (From Worcester News)

Worcester Warriors 20, Wasps 19

7:29pm Sunday 16th October 2011 in Match Reports By Tom Guest, @tomguestWN #WENsport

AS the Rugby World Cup draws to a conclusion in New Zealand and a plethora of star players return to bolster their Aviva Premiership employers, so begins the LV= Cup — a competition where top-flight teams traditionally rest their key players and blood youngsters.

Why, in a world cup year especially, does this Anglo-Welsh tournament not take place at the start of the season when sides are shorn of their internationals, therefore creating an ideal time to develop academy players and give game-time to fringe squad members? Probably because that idea makes too much sense.

So the likes of Leicester and Northampton — two of the Premiership sides hit hardest by international call-ups — find themselves languishing in the league’s lower reaches after six rounds of the season with it all to do to make the top-six, let alone the end-of-year play-offs.

That will doubtless be of little concern to Worcester, who have been able to take advantage of this inequality to a small extent with a home win over a depleted Saints outfit. However, what should be of big concern to the Sixways coaching staff is the manner of the victory over Wasps in their LV= Cup opener.

“A win is a win” was the crux of the post-match reaction, but that was only possible after the hosts repelled a determined late attack from the Adams Park outfit, which only concluded when replacement fly-half Danny Gray managed to charge down Will Robinson’s drop-goal attempt.

Had Robinson been on target, a Wasps side unrecognisable from the one that takes the field in the Premiership would have left Sixways with all four points.

While Worcester also made wholesale changes, the vast majority of the Warriors players involved have vast amounts of top-flight action — the likes of Chris Fortey, Adam Balding and Craig Gillies.

The same could not be said for the 23 Dai Young brought with him as his team-sheet consisted of no less than seven players making their senior debuts and they were joined by a mixture of loan players and others from the far reaches of the squad.

Worcester began the game dominating possession and controlling territory but, once again, lost their way as the match went on. Aside from two moments of brilliance from Tom Arscott, Warriors fans had little to cheer as they watched a contest which should have been a comfortable five-pointer descend into a scrappy affair which ended with the hosts clinging on.

While the LV= Cup will be well down Richard Hill’s list of priorities, he would have expected the players supposedly on the fringes of his first-choice XV to dispatch such inexperienced opponents with much greater ease.