FRIDAY'S star turn Matt Cox is determined to nail down a Premiership place at Warriors – wherever that may be in the back row.

The 30-year-old Worcestershire-born ace earned rave reviews from fans having stepped in for injured skipper Gerrit-Jan van Velze at number eight.

Cox played the whole 80 minutes, almost tripling his game time in the league for the Sixways outfit this season.

And after his stand-out performance in a backs-to-the-wall victory over Harlequins, the ex-Gloucester player’s appetite has been whet ahead of Worcester's crunch showdown with his former club on Saturday.

“It was great to try to carry on what GJ has been doing,” said Cox.

“This is a chance for me to be playing and that’s what I want every week, whether that be at six, seven or eight. I just have to keep performing and staying in the team.

“We have the Premiership but the European games are just around the corner and the cup so for me, whatever (competition) it is I just want to play week in week out.”

A third league win of the campaign sees Warriors in the thick of a cluster of clubs vying to push for the top half and Cox sees no reason to be looking down the standings.

“I think the second block of Premiership games is where it starts to divide, who will fight for the top six and who will fight relegation,” he added.

“In the run-up to Christmas things start to level out a little bit so it was important to get our first win in this second phase of games.

“As a club and group of lads, we need to build on what we have done because we know what we are capable of.

“The boys we have are so talented. You look at that back line and what the forwards are capable of when we get things right so we have a good group.”

The 20-13 success was hard earned on the back of long spells without the ball but Cox insisted Worcester’s work rate had been a must following a disappointing display at Bath.

“We owed it to the fans, ourselves, the club and everybody. We let ourselves down (at Bath), spoke about it and managed to come back with an answer,” he said.

“There was a big emphasis on defence as well as set-pieces. Harlequins have a very good defence themselves but I think it came down to how dangerous we could be with the ball we had.

“To be fair to our lads they put their bodies on the line. It was great to front up like that and when our backs get the ball, they are lethal.

“Everyone was blowing at one point because it was quite end to end with a few little breaks and bits.

“The boys just dug in, took shots to their bodies, carried and defended very well.”