DIRECTOR of rugby Dean Ryan says Worcester Warriors are “fired up” about the prospect of beating local rivals Moseley at Sixways today (Saturday, 3pm).
A last-minute try from Ben Mosses condemned Worcester Warriors to a heart-breaking 23-19 defeat as Bristol won an enthralling curtain raiser to the Greene King IPA Championship.
Ryan said his players were frustrated to not claim all four points as they dominated large periods of the game at Ashton Gate.
But the Warriors boss, who has made six change to the side which came up short against Bristol, insisted they were now even more determined to give their fans something to shout about on Saturday.
“Our start point was frustrating as we should have won the game reasonably easily, but we are really invigorated about what we think we can do,” he said.
“To see a 22-year-old tight-head, like Nick Schonert, set the place alight and Mikey Williams create mayhem at Bristol is great. You can understand why I am so upbeat as we have got the likes of JT (Jonathan Thomas) and GJ (Van Velze) to come in who can help with their development.
“This Saturday is our first home game of this Championship season and it is against Moseley, which is a local derby for us, so we are pretty fired up about this.
“We want to kick on from last week, so we can keep moving each time and when each challenge comes along we need to keep trying to improve what we are doing.”
Among the changes, Christian Scotland Williamson has been handed his first league start after coming off the bench against Bristol, while Ben Howard, Ravai Fatiaki and Charlie Mulchrone will replace Chris Pennell, Andy Symons and Jonny Arr respectively,
GJ Van Velze will captain the side, who will be expected to sweep aside Moseley, who are managed by former Ireland international Kevin Maggs.
But having seen the Birmingham outfit produce an stirring fightback to draw against Jersey last week, Ryan said he was anticipating a battle at Sixways.
“Any team that is run by Kevin Maggs will know how to scrap and fight, so there will be difficult times for us,” Ryan said.
“How we behave in that difficult time will determine how we get out of it. For Kevin Maggs I would imagine this week has been reasonably easy, so therefore we have got to work really hard to match their fight and emotion and then let some of the potential we have got be the difference between the two sides.”
Visit our website from 2.30pm for live updates of Warriors’ clash against Moseley.
Warriors’ side to face Moseley: Howard, Smith, Grove, Fatiaki, Biggs, Mieres, Mulchrone, Bower, Annett, Schonert, Percival, Scotland-Williamson, Williams, Cox, Van Velze (C)
Replacements: George, Daniels, Sanderson, de Carpentier, Arr, Eden, Stelling