WARRIORS director of rugby John Brain believes the European Challenge Cup will be a good learning curve for the club.

Worcester kick-off their campaign against French side Montpellier at Sixways today (2pm) and then travel to Amatori Catania in Sicily next Saturday.

They have a double header against Irish outfit Connacht in December before playing the final two pool five fixtures in January.

Brain said: "They will be tough games. The competition will be a good one for the players and coaches because it presents lots of different challenges.

"It will be a good experience for us and we look to do well in it."

Warriors are one of six English teams in the new-look competition, which also includes seven French sides, four Italian and one team each from Ireland, Scotland and Romania.

If they win the competition they will automatically qualify for the Heineken Cup, Europe's premier club competition.

Last season, Worcester were knocked out of the European Cup by Brive and went into the Shield before losing to Auch in the final.

But the competition did not provide the French winners with a Heineken Cup spot.

Brain added: "If we look at this group it is realistic for us to target winning the group. If we achieve that we are then in the quarter-finals with the chance of playing at home and we will be three games away from qualifying for the Heineken Cup."

Kai Horstmann, who will start on the bench for Warriors today if he passes a late fitness test, says the French side are something of an unknown quantity.

"We don't know much about Montpellier," he said. "We haven't seen a great deal of them because they haven't been on French television that much, which can also be a good thing.

"When you are playing English clubs week in and week out it's nice to have a different sort of challenge."

The five seeds in the competition are Agen (France), Viadana (Italy), Connacht, The Borders (Scotland) and Gloucester.

Each pool winner and the best three runners-up will qualify for the last eight.