Worcester Warriors are aiming to blow Pirates out of the water with a devastating display of early firepower when the two sides do battle at Sixways tomorrow night (7.45pm).
With a prized place in the Premiership on the line for his team, Worcester head coach Rich-ard Hill is looking for his players to kill of their Cornish opponents in the first quarter of the game by quickly building on the nine-point lead they hold from last week's first leg of the Championship final.
The Warriors boss has no fresh injury concerns and is likely to name the same squad that claimed a 22-12 opening victory at the Mennaye Field last Wednesday evening.
He said: "I listened to Exeter head coach Rob Baxter, who has been through this scenario, talking to the commentators after our first leg and they said we would be under pressure with Pirates only needing a couple of scores to catch us up.
“But Rob rightly pointed out that our nine-point lead is a massive cushion and if we score early on, what happens to the Pirates then? The game is almost over for them then and that’s the way to think about it.
“We are looking at the first 20 minutes and to make sure the scoreboard shows Worcester Warriors ahead and then we can end the tie. We’ll be going flat-out in that first 20 to put some points on the board.”
He added: “I don't think we’ll be making any tactical changes, we just need to do what we did a little better.
“Our pack functioned well, but the key thing for us was, having established good control and won good set-piece ball, we weren’t very clever in using it.
“Nine times out of ten, after two phases we either spilt the ball or kicked it straight down their throats. We didn’t make full use of the domination we had up front in the scrum and line-out.”
Despite playing in front of a 12,024 capacity crowd, Hill insists his players will not be feeling the pressure and has backed them to get the job done.
He added: “The beauty of winning the first game means we haven’t got to fuss about anything else — this is just us against the Pirates and we have to win the game, it’s simple.
“The pressure is not at all on us, we are very cool and calm about it and hopefully we will be very ruthless as well. We’ve had some very tight games against Cornish Pirates, but we want to beat them again tomorrow night.
“This camp is determined to put in a performance and I don’t think we played anywhere near as well as we can as a team in Cornwall .
“We did what we needed to do to establish control, but there’s still a hell of a lot to come. I don’t think the Pirates have seen the best of Worcester Warriors yet.”
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here