SO here we are, the week building up to one of the biggest games in Worcester Warriors’ history.

The journey has been long and, at times, dangerous but now it’s time to go to work.

Bedford stand in the way of us reaching the two-leg final and a chance of regaining Premiership status.

This time, we cannot allow them to stop us.

Travelling down to Bedford last weekend for the British & Irish Cup semi-final, I had a good feeling about the game.

The sun was out and I knew the boys were pumped up at the chance of winning some silverware.

For Bedford, it was a dress rehearsal for this weekend’s fixture and they fielded near enough their strongest team.

I arrived slightly late and was pleased to be informed by the car park attendant that we had started the stronger of the two sides.

Joe Carlisle and Alex Grove finished off some well-worked chances.

The superb travelling support was on song too.

Unfortunately, the Bedford pack kicked into gear and, through direct running, began to make inroads.

We had a young pack who competed well with Bedford’s but the overall weight advantage began to show and soon they had closed our lead down and then pulled ahead to win 43-27.

Jake Abbott looked impressive and his work-rate was fantastic.

His recovery continues and, with more rugby under his belt, the competition for the seven jersey will be hot.

In the backs, Oriol Ripol was trying his best with every opportunity he got.

His speed and footwork helped to set up the second try of the match from the restart.

The young guns were firing well too with James Freeman showing his physicality.

Bedford managed to capitalise on their chances but we had the last say in the match with another fantastic try stemming from great counter-attack work by Oriol.

We will settle the score on Sunday.

There is a real buzz about Sixways at the moment. The players all sense the importance of the next few weeks and are relishing the challenge.

The boxes are being ticked and the guys are fired up in waiting for the big showdown.

We are hoping to run out of the tunnel to a huge crowd of Warriors fans all eager to see us progress.

The bigger the crowd, the better for us all so please come and get behind us if you can.

Having seen Bedford play at the weekend, we had a chance to identify their key players and see how we can continue our winning run over them in the league.

There has been talk that Bedford will not be taking this fixture too seriously as they are focusing on the British & Irish Cup.

Whether this has any truth behind it or not remains to be seen.

All we need to focus on is that we will be taking it seriously.

The next few weeks will determine where we play our rugby next season.

There are three other sides who would love to put a spanner in the works and halt our progression.

It is going to be a very exciting time ahead.

I hope you can join us!