Saturday, April 15, 2000

WORCESTER ended a traumatic seven days both on and off the field by easing past Henley at a subdued Sixways.

In the past week the club has suffered its biggest league defeat for 12 years and then the sacking of Les Cusworth so a 30-8 win over Henley at least steadied the ship.

But deep down everyone knows that the season is already over and the small crowd of just over 1,600 reflected it.

Henley too have nothing left to play for apart from pride but had the upper hand early on due largely to Worcester's dreadful kicking.

Time and again they failed to make touch or kicked straight into opponents hands and therefore spent most of the first ten minutes in and around their own 22.

Henley stand-off Matt Jones missed the chance to open the scoring kicking a penalty wide and short and once Ben Harvey had shown him how it is done, gradually Worcester got on top.

But playing into the wind and with constant drizzle making handling difficult they never looked like cutting loose.

Harvey's second penalty attempt dropped in front of the posts but the sliced clearance led the first try as Worcester drove forward at the line-out allowing Sililo Martens to send Nathan Carter charging over.

Harvey converted before kicking a second penalty minutes later and although Jones edged Henley back into the match with three points before the break the pendulum had begun to swing Worcester's way.

Within 60 seconds of the restart they scored a second try when Harvey's long-range pass narrowly evaded intercepting fingers and sent Sateki Tuipulotu on a powerful run to the corner.

Henley responded with a try of their own, working the ball nicely from their own 22 deep into Worcester territory and, after full-back Tim Barlow went close, Jones scored in the corner for his first try of the season.

Within minutes though, Worces-ter were clear again as a superb run from centre Shaun Woof put the ball on a plate for Tuipulotu to score under the posts.

The contest was over and so the game gradually fizzled out to nothing although referee Martin Fox had done his best to whistle the life out of the game much earlier.

Prop Neil Lyman completed the scoring as again Worcester scored from a line-out down the left hand side and after a week of turmoil normality was resumed.

Worcester: Yapp, Baxter, Woof, Myler (Currier 50), Tuipulotu (Walker 58), Harvey, Martens (Fenley 40), Windo, Richards (Hall 76), Collins (Lyman 72), Denhardt, Lloyd (Raymond 57), Merlin (Denham 66), Carter, Jenner.

Attendance: 1,616.