MIKE Ruddock expects to be without first-choice Ryan Powell for up to two months after the Welsh scrum-half injured a medial knee ligament during Warriors’ 17-9 Guinness Premiership victory over Sale Sharks at Edgeley Park.

Powell was helped off the field after 49 minutes and the injury will come as a big blow as he had finally nailed down the Sixways number nine shirt as his own.

Director of rugby Ruddock, however, has plenty of options in that position with Matt Powell the next in line ahead of new arrival Ben Jones and young academy product Jonny Arr.

Ruddock said: “Ryan unfortunately has damaged a medial ligament and he could be out for six to eight weeks.

“It is a big shame for him as he has been very competitive in that scrum-half position and he’ll be gutted to be out for a few weeks after having become first choice.

“Hopefully, as things settle down, it will be a little less time than that, but the first estimate is six to eight weeks.”

Worcester’s victory over a weakened Sale side could and should have been more convincing, but his kickers contrived to miss five shots at goal. Fly-half Matt Jones was the chief culprit, but Ruddock refused to criticise his stand-off.

The Warriors chief said: “Matt apologised to me afterwards because he knew he’d missed opportunities, but his confidence is not down.

“The good thing about a good goal-kicker is coming back, stepping up and not being afraid to go again. That’s what he did and he nailed an important penalty with 10 minutes left which put us two scores ahead.

“I commend him for that – the best of goal-kickers can have an off day and it is about how they come back from that. Matt came back well late in the game.”

Ruddock added: “I thought it was a very good performance in a nip-and-tuck game. We started well in the first-half and played with plenty of width, which was important for us.

“At 6-6 at half-time I felt we’d had the better of the half but hadn’t managed to penetrate their defence.

“I asked the boys to keep playing the same way in the second-half as I felt we’d get an opportunity and that’s what happened with the great try we scored.

“Sale were missing experienced players like Sheridan, Bruno and others, so the scrum was an area we wanted to target. They were inexperienced up front so we went at that and got some penalty chances from it.

“We deserved the win and we’ll take that but, at the same time, we know Sale had some players missing, so it was important not to let the opportunity pass us by.

“If you’ve got a confident team, you’ve got more chance of stringing a few results together. Confidence comes from playing well and if we can build on this and pick up another result on Friday, it will do wonders for us.

“We are a strong team, we’ve got quality players and there was good shape to our attack and defence at times against Sale.

“If we’d kicked our goals we would have been quite a way ahead and avoided some of the nerves of the last 10 minutes.”