Boss Mike Ruddock admitted he was satisfied with the early season form of his Worcester Warriors as they eased to a 27-7 victory over newly-promoted Leeds Carnegie at Sixways Stadium.
Warriors came back from an early Leeds try to run out comfortable winners and go top of the Guinness Premiership table going into the weekend, courtesy of tries from Scotland star Alex Grove and Marcel Garvey
Director of Rugby Ruddock reflected that his team still had never ‘really hit full throttle’ as Leeds produced a battling second half show.
But he was still full of praise as his team showed no signs of a hangover from the bitter disappointment of last gasp defeat to Northampton Saints to bounce back in style and take top spot.
“We have had a reasonably start, we could have won at Northampton and we won comfortable against Leeds without really hitting full throttle,” said Ruddock.
“Two years ago we struggled against Leeds, we drew won and lost one, so they are a tough bunch.
“We knew this was a tough time to play them as they have a winning mentality, they were champions last year and hadn’t lost on the opening weekend. They came here not fearing losing and it showed the way they kept going.
“We felt it was a try at the end with Miles Benjamin which would have given us a score that our territory and statistics for three quarters of the game merited.
“It‘s nice to be top of the table, even to be there fleetingly, but the most important thing is the performance – we will concentrate on that more than our standing in the league table..
“We needed to back up a passionate and energetic performance at Northampton last weekend, and that is what we did.
“We will reflect on the game and the last 20 to 30 minutes we struggled to get continuity and get hold of the football and press home our advantage; that was disappointing.
“But you have got to give credit to Leeds, they are a determined bunch and they were dogged in the way they kept on trying and wouldn’t give up.”
Ruddock also saluted summer signing Willie Walker as he kicked 17 points – including one classy 45 metre drop goal – to secure victory.
“Willie won a couple of games for us last year with his kicking and general stewardship at ten and he showed great composure tonight to nail two really good penalties early in the second half,” added Ruddock.
“The drop goal was a real touch of class from him too. It is just a shame the last period of the game we gave a lot of penalties and couldn’t get our hands on the ball to release our backs more than we did.
“We ended up defending quite a bit and the yellow card meant we were a man down.
“We finished with a very respectable score and win, but I felt there was more in the tank if we could have just got our hands on the ball a bit more. We will look to improve on this.”