SAMOAN fly-half Loki Crichton climbed off the bench and found his kicking boots to nail 10 points and steer Worcester Warriors to a 26-11 success over Newcastle Falcons in the Guinness Premiership.

The much-maligned goal-kicker, who has had to be content with a place among the replacements after a string of inconsistent kicking displays, replaced the injured Matthew Jones after 24 minutes and produced a faultless effort.

The former Falcons outside-half contributed two penalties and two conversions as well as providing a deft chip for inside-centre Sam Tuitupou’s try as the home side controlled the game.

Crichton said: “It was a good team effort and we were pleased to come out on top. It’s unfortunate for Matt to get injured, but that’s rugby and we’ve still got some other good players in the squad who could come in to the team.

“If I can come in to replace him, that would be good. I’ve not really been working on my kicking, it’s just one of those things — all kickers miss them sometimes, but it comes right every now and then.”

The win moved Worcester to within striking distance of the teams in the top half of the table but director of rugby Mike Ruddock refused to get carried away and admits his side still have a lot to do to move away from the danger zone.

He said: “You never feel in this league that you’re suddenly away from the dark end because two or three results for other sides mean things can change very quickly.

“However, we are an optimistic bunch and we believe we can move forwards and get towards the top end of the table and a result like that pushes us in the right direction.

“We’ve got a big test against Saracens this weekend but that is one where we can relax a bit more.

“Against Newcastle, there was an expectation on us which we don’t usually get — we’re normally the underdogs and have to battle to beat people.”