No time to relax as battle hots up

I know Coventry's 22-19 victory over our title rivals Bristol last weekend was crucial for us, but we just dare not relax for one second in our efforts to be promoted from the Allied Dunbar Premiership Division Two.

All the talk at the moment is of who is going up, whether the first division will be 12 or 14 teams and whether Bristol will go ahead with their proposed buy-out of London Scottish.

But, for everyone concerned at Sixways, we are just trying to concentrate on the task in hand and take each match as it comes.

We know full well that we have a very hard run-in to the end of the season.

We have got Waterloo, Wakefield and Rotherham at home, all of which are vital games, and we would like the people of Worcester to back us as thoroughly as they can for those matches.

We have also got some very, very tough away matches against Exeter on Saturday, Leeds on March 28 and two local derbies against Moseley and Coventry.

Then, or course, the season finishes with the away match against Bristol which is now on Sunday, May 9.

Rotherham, who like Bristol are just behind us in the table, have perhaps got a slightly easier run-in to the end of the season, although it has to be said that there are no easy matches in what is a very tough league.

They have London Welsh, Fylde, Waterloo and Moseley at home and Blackheath, currently at the bottom of the table, Rugby and Exeter away. Then, of course, they visit us on May 1.

So, as you can see, everything is boiling up to a nail-biting finish to the season.

While I've got the chance I'd just like to mention our friendly against Melrose at Sixways last Friday night. It went fantastically well. We had the match here because there was a bit of a lull in the fixtures and we had a crowd of about 1,400.

Melrose stayed with us for the whole weekend and we beat them convincingly 51-33 with Phil Hassan, John Liley, Adam Martin, Duncan Hughes, Mark Linnett and Niall Malone among the try scorers.

Wednesady, February 25.