Worcester Warriors make just four changes from the line-up that started against Gloucester when Viadana visit for the first match of the Sixways club’s European Challenge Cup Pool 5 campaign tomorrow (3pm).
Director of rugby John Brain and head coach Anthony Eddy have balanced the need to rest some players with the determination to build on last Friday’s vastly-improved performance against Gloucester.
Tim Collier, Drew Hickey, James Brown and Miguel Avramovich come in with a clear message echoing around the Sixways changing room – the Gloucester performance is the least we’ll accept from now on.
“This competition’s important to us because it gives the winner a Heineken Cup place,” says Eddy. “We did reasonably well last year in reaching the semi-finals, and this year we have a couple of very hard pool games.
“We were pleased with aspects of our performance against Gloucester. But we’re aware that there’s a lot of room for further improvement if we want to be a bigger force. There’s a big improvement left in the team, and the players know that.”
Team: 01 Lee Fortey, 02 Aleki Lutui, 03 Chris Horsman, 04 Richard Blaze, 05 Tim Collier, 06 Kai Horstmann (c), 07 Tom Harding, 08 Drew Hickey, 09 Ryan Powell, 10 James Brown, 11 Mark Tucker, 12 Thomas Lombard, 13 Miguel Avramovic, 14 Aisea Havili, 15 Lee Best
Replacements: 16 Darren Morris, 17 Ben Gotting, 18 Gavin Quinnell, 19 James Collins, 20 Matt Powell, 21 Gary Trueman, 22 Thinus Delport