We met at Sixways ready for our first away trip of the season. What could be better? The Irish supporters who had so quickly accepted us into the premiership fold are great hosts. We knew that win or lose we were about to have another fabulous experience.

For once the journey was quite uneventful, arriving at the Madejski some 2 and half hours before kick-off. So it was into the Hotel, get some liquid refreshment, meet lots of Irish supporters and watch England destroy the Australian batting ...again!!

Finally it was time to take our seats, noticing that the dual was on, Gommersall-Powell & Drahm-Brown, against the early form side

Our new antipodean head coach looked pretty relaxed considering his countrymen were taking a hammering yet again.

This was Eddy's second premiership game, what influence had he brought. Was it too early for him to make any differences? A long way to go in a long season.

Irish had scored 4 tries in their opening game of the season and were now at home in front of a passionate crowd. It was going to be extremely difficult to get a result from this encounter.

However the chants of Warriorrrss.... Warriorrrrrsss, echoed around the stadium slowly building to a crescendo as OUR warriors entered the arena.

James Brown got the game underway!

Worcester were off like a steam train once they had secured the ball. For fully 5 minutes they attacked inside the Irish 22, it looked as though we were on a mission to dispel last weeks start and it worked.

However no points were scored as the Irish defence as usual was up to the task, a very hard defence to breakdown.

Then from nowhere and silly fumble from James Brown, a hack on saw Staniforth out sprint the defence and dive on the ball just before going dead. Everitt converts

Irish 7 : 0 Warriors

It was still the Warriors who were actually creating the problems and looked capable of breaking through, but made unforced errors as they regularly last the ball in contact. This is where Irish came to the fore as they counterattacked from anywhere and they did it at speed.

From several of these counters they created real danger but the Warriors defence although stretched coped. Once again the lineout was not firing on all cylinders. It stuttered to ignite but failed in some vital situations. The Irish line is one of the most disruptive in the Premiership, but not all the losses can be put down to their skill. Some of the throwing was plain bad, probably in an attempt to beat them rather than hit our man. However Craig Gillies also took several off them.

Irish gradually took charge as they seemed somewhat quicker to the loss of our ball.

Worcester continued to attack and after a great break from Hickey, who was pulled down only 10 meters short, the support was there in numbers. It was all hands to the deck as the momentum was fired up and pressure applied to a crumbling defence. The chink was there and Tony Windo was driven over for the first try.

Irish 7 : 7 Warriors

Straight from the restart Irish attacked pressurising the Worcester defence into handling errors.

Another kick through and once again Staniforth out sprints the defence to touchdown again. This time it was unconverted.

Irish 12 : 7 Warriors

Now it was Irish who started to attack as gaps out wide were being found, but the wall held. From one counter attack after another lost ball Irish created a 3 man overlap on the left but failed to touchdown.

Worcester were fighting to stay in the game and they were doing it in spades.

the games was not a spectacle of running brilliance but it had excitement for both sets of supporters, who were both fully committed to their teams. Irish...Irish... followed by Waarrriorrrss....Warriorrrss rang around the stadium. For the purest probably a dour 40 struggle for the travelling supporters we were still in the game!!

Shane Drahm had replaced the injured Brown and with one of his first touches scored a smart drop goal. This was quickly cancelled out by an Everitt penalty

Half-time

Irish 15 : 10 Warriors