THE Rugby Football Union has apologised for letting Frenchman Eric Gauzins ruin Worcester's weekend win over Birmingham & Solihull.

The French exchange referee slowed Saturday's National One clash down to a crawl with numerous penalties before sending off Worcester's player of the season Tony Windo.

The RFU has since said sorry to Worcester but, after the league runners-up were denied four tries and an extra point, it is of little benefit to John Brain and Andy Keast.

"We've had an apology," said Sixways coach Keast.

"We've just got to hope it doesn't happen again because it was unacceptable. Anyone at Sixways on Saturday would have seen people laughing at the referee at some point. He was that bad. He was totally incapable, totally incompetent.

"Hopefully he'll never referee in this country again. The fact is, though, that whoever picked the referee in the first place is as incompetent as him."

"Sometimes, what happens is that the RFU are more concerned about Anglo-French relations than they are about the individual clubs involved," added Brain, Worcester's director of rugby.

"Our final game of the season at Sixways was effectively spoilt by the referee and an apology doesn't help the supporters who paid good money."

Meanwhile, Brain and Keast have made two changes to the side which beat the Bees 17-6. Craig Chalmers has been unable to train this week so drops to the bench, while James Brown is back in the starting line-up at fly-half for the final league game of the season at Rugby Lions on Saturday (3pm).

"Craig said he was too sore to train so there was no way we could pick him," said Keast. "James has trained this week with very sore ribs and so starts."

Jim Jenner is back in the team at number eight because of an injury to openside flanker Richard Nias, so Christian Evans moves to seven.

Worcester: Roke; Richardson, Officer, Trueman, Garrard, Brown, O'Reilly; Windo, Hall, Olver, Zaltzman, Gillies, Gabey, Evans, Jenner. Replacements: Chalmers, Southwell, Wigram, Pearl, G. Mason, N. Mason, Quinnell.