WORCESTER'S Director of Rugby, Geoff Cooke, knows he'll have to start looking for another job if the Sixways outfit fail to win promotion to Zurich Insurance Premiership this season.

The former England supremo has pulled on a tracksuit again to help out director of coaching Adrian Skeggs and will combine his duties as Worcester's backs coach with those of chief executive.

But it's on playing performances that Cooke will be judged - and he knows that the club's chairman and benefactor, Cecil Duckworth, will accept no excuses if Worcester falter again.

"If we don't go up, I'll be looking for another job, it's as simple as that," says Cooke. "And there can be no excuses.

"We have the best facilities in the land for training, we have the most expensive squad in the division and probably the biggest. So, if we don't go up, we have nowhere to hide.

"Last year, it was possible for me to say that I didn't have much to do with the squad, because the majority of players had been signed before I arrived."

But, this year, Skeggs and Cooke have picked the players, so it's his head on the block.

What Worcester have to do, exactly, to win promotion isn't yet clear. The Rugby Football Union initially informed First Division clubs that they'd impose a three-year moratorium on relegation - but they softened their approach after protests from the Second Division.

Now it appears that the bottom club in the First and top in the Second will be involved in an end-of-season playoff, but there's still a possibility that the RFU will revert to a two-up, two-down system.

With so much uncertainty, Cooke believes Worcester's only approach is to ensure that they finish top by winning all their games.

"Hopefully, the promotion situation will be sorted out shortly," he said, "but I've told the boys that, whatever the outcome of the talks, we have to win the division, preferably by winning every match.

"History shows that, if you lose only two matches, you can still win the league. But if you lose those games to the same team, you've probably had it."

Cooke, previously coach of Bedford and the Yorkshire county side, has returned to his first love following the axing of Les Cusworth and the decision of the long-serving Phil Maynard to join Stourbridge.

Cooke, whose off-field responsibility restricted his coaching last season, is happy with the change in emphasise and seems to be enjoying working closely with the players.

"I've told the chairman that I much prefer to have a tracksuit on than to be stuck in the office doing paperwork" he said. "My role has changed because, although I'm still chief executive, I'm also in overall charge of the rugby side of things.

"Carl Douglas has been put in charge of fitness for the first team, as well as working as director of our academy, and Tim Smith has become a general member of our coaching team with responsibly for our under-19 side."