JOHN Brain believes Saturday's European Challenge Cup win against Montpellier was reward for a hard week's work by his Worcester Warriors side.

The Sixways director of rugby put his players through their paces after a disappointing performance against Leeds in the Premiership eight days earlier and was pleased with the response.

"I think there were a lot of positive aspects to that performance," he said. "The guys have worked exceptionally hard this week.

"They have had a tough week. We took the opportunity to put some conditioning into them. So they have played that game on the back of a tough week and, all in all, there are far more positives than negatives."

Warriors scored five tries in the clash at Sixways to give them a 36-18 win and keep them very much in the hunt for a Heineken Cup place.

Brain added: "We got five points. They got none. So you can't do much more than that. That gives us a good base in which to build in this competition.

"I think we stand a realistic chance of winning this group. I think that is what we would like to do -- get out of this group and get a home quarter-final."

Brain added:"I think we are capable of doing that but there is a lot of hard rugby to be played before we can say that that has been achieved."

The Worcester coach was furious at the amount of penalties that Worcester gave away in the Leeds game at Sixways last week and he set a target of conceding no more than ten penalties against Montpellier.

"I wouldn't have thought it was substantially over that mark," he said.

"I thought the players were very disciplined and played some good controlled rugby."