Lutui — Young guns have filled the void

Director of rugby Mike Ruddock has seen his props dropping like flies — with England Saxon Matt Mullan and Shaun Ruwers ruled out for an extended period of time.

Tevita Taumoepeau and Olivier Sourgens have also missed matches through injury.

However, durable hooker Aleki Lutui continues to be Ruddock’s go-to man at number two and is ready to go back to the coal face week after week.

Already this term, Lutui has found himself sandwiched between Mullan, Taumopeau, Sourgens Callum Black, Adam Black, Jack Gilding and Ruwers.

A catalogue of injuries to Ruddock’s stable of props has stretched the Sixways squad to breaking point, but the Tongan enforcer looks on the bright side.

The former policeman believes the injuries to his front-row colleagues have handed youngsters a chance to impress and will benefit the Warriors in the long run.

He explained: “I don’t mind who I team up with in the front row, it is good for them to get more experience.

“Jack Gilding has done well and Callum Black has been going well for us too — last weekend he was good and showed how he has come on. They step up to the challenge. They get some experience and play some games for the first team to become better players.

“You come in every week and try to be the best you can for the team so, when you go out on the field, you perform.

“There are a few individual roles out on the field that I must keep working on, I have to maintain my strength and work on my weakness.

“I always work on the set-piece and the line-out, I need to focus on this. I enjoy the rest, I just want to be out on the field and maintain my strength.”

Lutui will need every ounce of that strength he talks about tonight when unbeaten league-leaders Saracens visit Sixways.

A mouth-watering facet of the match is set to be a titanic front row battle between powerhouse Lutui and Sarries’ South African tyro Schalk Brits, who has been in irrepressible form this term.

Lutui added: “I have seen a couple of Saracens games. They look sharp at the moment and they are unbeaten.

“But, for us, it is a big challenge — this time maybe we stop their unbeaten run and that will be great for us. The result could be big for us.

“We have to look at ourselves now, we must realise that every week it will be a tough challenge.

“Every team in the Guinness Premiership is good, if you look at the table there is not much between the teams. We have to concentrate on ourselves and not look elsewhere, if we concentrate on our preparation and make sure we get it right we will be okay.

“We know Saracens are in good form, but we must not think about that, just focus on ourselves.

“So far I have enjoyed my season with Worcester. It is just the last few weeks where we have let ourselves down a little bit. Not just individually but collectively as a squad.

“Last week against Bath we were also disappointed as we wanted to win that game. Now we must concentrate on moving forward.

“We must look at our roles and our team preparations for the big match with Saracens. The team looked good in terms of our physicality against Bath, the preparations during the week was good. Everyone was very focused on the game plan and we had just a few errors. We need to improve for this week as we are facing the league leaders.”

Meanwhile, Lutui is closing on a century of games for the Warriors and he is relishing reaching the milestone.

He said: “I have never really thought about the number of games I have played.

“It is a big achievement if you get to 100 games for any club — for me it has gone quickly. It can take four or five years, but here the season is quite long.

“I am happy here and really enjoy my rugby in Worcester. I will see how it goes the rest of this season and focus on that. I want to get the team up the table, after that we can think about what happens next.”