JOHN Brain was almost smiling after Worcester Warriors' first away win in the Premiership 17-6 over Northampton Saints.

The Sixways director of rugby realised the significance of the victory not simply because of his team's league predicament, but also for the potential impact on confidence within the squad.

The Warriors went into the match on the back of a 38-11 beating by Leicester and Brain admitted that this victory was a huge turnaround from last weekend.

"We've done a lot of soul-searching this week," said Brain. "We've diagnosed the reasons why we've played so poorly in the last two games and we've addressed them.

"That was an outstanding display by the team. We showed a lot of character, a lot of quality and thoroughly deserved to win.

"We had the right attitude from the word go. We were physical, we wanted to stop them, to tackle them and we wanted to work hard for each other. When you do that, you very often get your just rewards.

"It will give us a much-needed injection of confidence. This team are capable of beating anyone in this league. I do believe that and I know Northampton are struggling but they still had a lot of quality on the pitch and we've beaten them so we're very happy about it."

Worcester's line-out was head and shoulders above Northampton's and Brain revealed that it was an area he'd targeted.

"Our line-out isn't too bad," he added. "We've got a good focal point in Craig Gillies and Northampton's line-out is statistically the worst in the league. We thought we could get amongst it and we did.

"If your basics are out of kilter, and we've experienced that recently at London Irish when our line-out was a disaster, you struggle to win matches.

"Line-outs and scrums are very, very much a cornerstone on which you build your game."

Worcester will have their revitalised confidence put to the test on Friday night when they entertain reigning Zurich Premiership champions London Wasps at Sixways (8pm).