Warriors avoid slip up at Scottish despite yellow peril - The Worcester Observer

Warriors avoid slip up at Scottish despite yellow peril

Worcester Editorial 6th May, 2015 Updated: 19th Oct, 2016   0

London Scottish 22 Worcester Warriors 27

Greene King

IPA Championship

Play-off semi-final first leg




Geoff Berkeley reports from the Athletic Ground

ILL-DISCIPLINE almost cost Worcester Warriors dearly for the second week running as they needed a last-gasp penalty try to edge past London Scottish in a tense play-off opener.


Jonny Arr, James Percival and Mike Williams all saw yellow as the Exiles pushed a frustrated Warriors side to the wire at the Athletic Ground.

Although the victory gives Worcester a five-point advantage in the two-legged tie, the amount of cards will no doubt be a concern for director of rugby Dean Ryan as he also had two men sin-binned in their defeat to Bristol last week.

However, the Warriors boss refused to criticise his players and instead pointed the blame at Premiership referee Greg Garner for the yellow cards, which blighted the contest.

“We have had issues with referees all season, so just sending a Premiership referee here thinking he is going to solve everything doesn’t work,” Ryan said.

“We were under pressure and when you leak penalties at drive you get people in the bin.

“When we put massive pressure on them, it took five situations to get any reward. But when we get one situation defending a drive we get people in the bin.”

It was Worcester who got off to the shakier start as Sam Smith knocked on from the kick off before the hosts conceded a penalty, which Peter Lydon failed to convert.

But they were soon into their stride as Charlie Mulchrone collected the ball from the back of a ruck and sent Smith over in the corner.

Lydon did get Scottish on the board with a fine conversion from the halfway line, but Worcester were in the ascendancy and on the 12th minute they got their second try.

Darren O’Shea did well to break through a tackle before offloaded to Vuna who touched down with ease.

Despite missing two conversion attempts, Ryan Lamb was looking lively in attack and it did not take long for him to get into the heart of the action.

The fly half’s cross-field kick was not gathered by Matthew Williams and Vuna pounced on the loose ball to score his second. Lamb then followed up with a conversion to take Warriors into a 17-3 lead.

Worcester appeared to be bossing the encounter and when Scottish were reduced to 14 men when Mike Doneghan saw yellow carded, they had the chance to put further daylight between themselves and their opponents.

However, the Richmond side somehow managed to turn things around as they began to take the game to the visitors.

And their more positive attitude paid off five minutes before the interval when Jamie Stephenson threw himself over the line after Mark Bright was stopped short. Lydon added the extras.

It was then Worcester’s turn to get on the wrong side of referee Garner as Arr was yellow carded for a tip tackle.

Warriors managed to see out the ten minute period, but Percival then replaced Arr in the sin-bin shortly after coming on as a replacement for inexplicably pulling a man down in the lineout.

This gave Scottish an extra confidence boost as they made the numerical advantage count with a try from Bright.

Warriors, whose lead was now reduced to 17-15, were getting increasingly frustrated and they soon got their third man in the bin when Williams was given his marching orders.

This was followed by a third Scottish try, with Bright going over from a driving maul and Worcester suddenly found themselves behind at 22-17 following Lydon’s conversion.

Warriors did not panic, though, as Lamb slotted home a penalty before the hosts mounted heavy pressure in the closing stages.

D’Arcy Rea became the fifth man to see yellow in the game as Warriors pinned Scottish back with a succession of scrums in the dying seconds.

And, after countless resets, Garner finally awarded Worcester a penalty try, which Lamb converted.

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