MIKE Ruddock admits the thought of qualifying for next season's Heineken Cup by winning the European Challenge Cup has crossed his mind.

However, the Worcester Warriors director of rugby is refusing to get carried away and insists his players must take things one game at a time.

That starts with tonight's potentially tricky trip to south-west France to take on Montauban (5.30pm GMT).

Ruddock said: "Qualifying for the Heineken Cup through the European Challenge Cup is in our sub-conscious.

"We put in a good performance in the Premiership match at Newcastle and what we didn't want to do was to dismantle that team totally for tonight's game and run the risk of not being able to reproduce a similar performance.

"We have got ourselves to the top of our pool and we would be foolish not to try and take the opportunities that present themselves.

"There is now an opportunity to try and win tonight's game, then the match with Bucuresti next Saturday and finish with as many points as we can because the rewards are quite great.

"That's the next goal we're looking at - anything else and we would be jumping well ahead of ourselves."