Friday, February 25, 2005

JOHN Brain was in seventh heaven last night as Worcester Warriors moved further away from the relegation trap door.

The Sixways director of rugby saw his side chalk up their seventh Premiership victory of the season with a 23-10 win over Sale Sharks and immediately put the pressure on bottom side North-ampton.

"There are a couple of teams below us that are struggling for form, struggling to win games," he said.

"With five games to go, it's put us in a good position. We're defying gravity and that's credit to everybody involved here at Worcester.

"We played more expansive, 15-man rugby than we did against Harlequins last Saturday and if things had gone better for us at certain times then we could have come away with five points. However, we are happy with four."

Advantage

First-half tries from Giscard Pieters, Siaosi Vaili and Thinus Delport sent a sell-out 8,477 Sixways crowd wild in front of the Sky Sports cameras and gave Worcester an advantage they never looked likely to relinquish.

James Brown added two penalties and a conversion while Sale only had a Mike Hercus penalty to their name at half-time.

The Edgeley Park side hit back in the second period with a converted try from hooker Johnny Roddam but, in truth, they were second best to a rampant Worcester.

Craig Gillies was a man mountain in the line-out, while Delport's 40th min-ute try was his best yet for Worcester.

The Warriors proved too much for Sale up front and forward pressure led to Pieters' try after just two minutes. Blood replacement Vaili burst over on 20 minutes and Delport beat two men with a stunner just before the break.

Brown's kicking saw Worcester stroll through the second-half and, despite Roddam's late try, the Warriors were good value for their third successive Premiership victory which puts them 10 points clear of Saints at the bottom.

"It was very important for us to win," added Brain."We had a monumental performance at Harlequins and that created an opportunity for us to put distance between ourselves and teams below. Mathematically we are not safe but if you look at the form then it's pretty good."

Worcester: Delport 8; Pieters 7, Rasmussen 8, Lombard 7, O'Leary 6; Brown 7, Powell 7; Windo 7, Van Niekerk 7, Horsman 7, Collier 8, H Gillies 9, Hickey 8, Sanderson 7, MacLeod-Henderson 7. Reps: Fortey (Windo 78), Murphy 6 (Collier 61), Daly 7 (Van Niekerk 53), Vaili 7 (Hickey 70), Cole (Brown 79), Hayes (O'Leary 74), Trueman 6 (Rasmussen 56).