Bath 46 Worcester Warriors 13 (From Worcester News)

Bath 46 Worcester Warriors 13

7:10pm Sunday 23rd October 2011 in Match Reports By Tom Guest, @tomguestWN #WENsport

THE agendas of the two teams couldn’t have been more different when Worcester Warriors and Bath walked out onto the pitch at The Rec on Saturday.

Judging by how strong a side they named, Bath director of rugby Sir Ian McGeechan is certainly taking the Anglo-Welsh competition seriously. However, for Worcester, it is mainly an opportunity to give rugby to their fringe players and brightest young prospects.

The hosts named a 23-man squad that included half-a-dozen players returning to club duty after representing their countries in New Zealand at the World Cup, as well as seasoned top-flight performers such as Dan Hipkiss, Nick Abendanon and Andy Beattie.

Conversely, Warriors selected nine players in their line-up who had never previously started a match — in any competition — for the club.

Without doubt, all that matters at Sixways this season is retaining the club’s Premiership status — any progress in either cup comeptition would be little more than a bonus.

With that in mind, it is important to disregard the final score at Bath and delve a little deeper into what Worcester actually achieved from the game — as well as from the 20-19 win over a youthful Wasps team the week previously.

Richard Hill and Phil Davies have been charged with transforming Warriors into a force to be reckoned with in the Prem-iership — a task many coaches have tried and failed with before.

However, I believe the current duo are on the right lines and assistant coach Davies speaks a lot of sense when he says the club must develop a quality squad, not just a first XV.

How can that be achieved without every member of the squad being given significant game-time to either learn their trade or catch the eye of the Worcester coaching staff?

So while shipping seven tries and conceding the best part of 50 points was certainly not what Hill and Davies would have hoped for from the trip to Bath, there were positives to take from the defeat.

The young Sixways tyros did not appear fazed or star-struck at the prospect of doing battle with Bath’s high-profile first-teamers, while the more senior members of the visitors’ squad stood shoulder to shoulder with their team-mates and fou-ght until the end.

While a result like this can give the confidence a short-lived dent, the experience of representing the first XV and being part of the Warriors team will stand those who took part in good stead.