NEWS that Worcester Warriors have chosen for their play-off semi-final second leg to be at home means that we are fast approaching crunch time in the Greene King IPA Championship.

There are just four games to go in the regular season before the battle for promotion to the Premiership takes centre stage.

Despite last Saturday’s narrow 23-21 defeat in Jersey, little has changed for Worcester, who are already guaranteed to finish no lower than second.

The aim will still be to finish above current leaders Bristol, thus ensuring Dean Ryan’s side can choose to play at home or away first should they go on to reach the play-off final in May.

Which is why the last league game of the season against their arch M5 rivals on Saturday, April 25, takes on an added significance.

A dead rubber it certainly won’t be.

Not only will the teams be sizing each other up ahead of a potential winner-takes-all promotion showdown, they will be chasing home advantage in the second leg.

The importance of this cannot be underestimated.

Bristol might have slipped up in that regard against London Welsh 12 months ago but Worcester made it count against Cornish Pirates in 2011 to regain their place in the top-flight.

On that occasion, Sixways was packed to the rafters as Richard Hill’s side triumphed.

Here, the fixture organisers may have done Warriors a favour. It is no coincidence that both league matches against Bristol have bookended the campaign.

They were likely put there in the hope of providing an interesting start and finish to a season of which the middle months are largely meaningless in the context of the play-offs.

That the second of those games is at home effectively gives Worcester a dress rehearsal for the final.

It is an opportunity they should grasp with both hands.