DIRECTOR of rugby John Brain watched an inexperienced Worcester Warriors side struggle to a 33-10 defeat in Newport and then admitted that some of the players were "miles away" from challenging for the first team.

With Warriors unable to progress in the Powergen Cup, Brain sent out an experimental line-up against the Gwent Dragons and they could not match the power of their Welsh opponents.

Despite the result, Brain thinks the match was a useful indicator of how some of the academy players are progressing.

"Some of them are miles away," he said. "Some of them can be extremely competitive and are progressing nicely. We've got a mixed bag but it does tell you an awful lot. It's a very informative exercise.

"It's not very often we get an opportunity mid-way through the season to put young players on the field and to field players who have not had a lot of first team rugby this season. You do learn quite a lot about certain individuals."

Defeats in previous games to Northampton and Leicester had ended Worcester's hopes of progressing past the group stages and Brain's main objective was to come through the game against Newport without adding to the club's injury list.

"I think the main thing is we got through it without any serious injury," he said.

"We've come off the back of a hard month so it was important for us to rest our front-line players."

Aisea Havili scored Worcester's only try, while Thinus Delport was one of several substitutions.

Lee Fortey picked up an injury in training on Friday and was replaced by Matt Mullan. Brain said: "Lee just tweaked his knee. He'll be fine for next week."