A collective New Year’s resolution set the scene for Worcester Warriors’ crucial 9-10 Guinness Premiership victory over Northampton Saints at Franklin’s Gardens.
Kicking hero Shane Drahm has revealed that the players adopted an ‘out with the old’ attitude to the vital match, which yielded four priceless points and Warriors’ fifth win in five outings at their happy hunting ground.
“We said before the game let’s forget about last year and start something new,” Shane said after bagging his thousandth Premiership point while converting Drew Hickey’s 57th-minute match-winning try. “It was much-needed. It sets the new year off in a good way.”
The full-back’s focus on playing his major part in the nail-biting was so hard that he had to be reminded after the final whistle that he’d passed the landmark. While admitting it made him feel “proud” to join the likes of Jonny Wilkinson, Tim Stimpson, Paul Grayson, Barry Everitt, Andy Goode and Charlie Hodgson in the exclusive club, he was also aware of the message the victory would send to the other clubs in the basement area.
“We love playing here,” he said of his old stamping ground. “We knew that if we won this one then we’d bring them into it. These are games that we’ve been losing this season, the tight ones. Like the Saracens game, we came away with it. If we’d lost it would have been an uphill battle, but the win brings us confidence.”
It was the team’s increasingly-effective defence – and its discipline – that provided the foundations for the win. But the 29-year-old admits that more of the same will be needed if the momentum is to be maintained on Sunday at Wasps.
“We’ve been working on our defence and that has really showed,” he said. “We haven’t given away many tries in the past few weeks. Credit to Phil Larder. He’s a great guy to have there. He’s given confidence in defending.
“It’s very hard to win at Wasps. They play a totally different game. They have a rush defence and we only have six days to prepare. A lot of it will be tactical. They have seven backs who are all dangerous. It will be hard but, with our defence working the way it is, and cutting out a lot of our penalties, it’ll probably be a tight one. But, hopefully, we can come away with it.
“Obviously, we’re looking to win every game. We have to really. If we can get another two wins in the next three or four games, that will give us a lot of confidence and put us where we want to be.”