Warriors boss Mike Ruddock hailed the ‘phenomenal’ home support as Worcester tasted a 24-18 success over Sale Sharks backed by a vocal and passionate crowd at Sixways Stadium.
Warriors boss Mike Ruddock hailed the ‘phenomenal’ home support as Worcester tasted success backed by a vocal and passionate crowd at Sixways Stadium.
Worcester fans had plenty to cheer as Marcel Garvey and Miles Benjamin raced over for stunning tries.
But Ruddock was also delighted with the noise levels as Worcester battled to keep Sale out with a deafening ‘Warriors, Warriors’ reverberating around the stadium for long spells.
“We have called for the 16th man this season in terms of the crowd getting behind us – today they were just brilliant for us once again,” said Ruddock, whose team was cheered on by a crowd of 9,510.
“We have always had fantastic fan base and a great crowd here at Sixways. That was very evident for us today when they were just phenomenal and really made a big difference for us.
“It lifted the boys and there are a lot of battered players in the changing room. We had to do 143 tackles against Wasps and I guess we matched that against Sale, but with that kind of backing you keep making tackles.”
Ruddock admitted many of his team had been running on empty by the end and hinted at changes in the coming weeks to keep his troops fresh.
“I would love to win without that load in defence, but if that is what it takes that is what we will do,” he said.
“What I night have to do the next few games is share the load, to keep asking the same players to keep delivering that commitment is hard.
“But the main goal was to win at home and keep the fortress going. We want people to come here and find it hard to play us.
“Our win against Leeds, our win against Sale and our narrow lose to Northampton show we are a difficult team to beat. Hopefully that will give us confidence and we will gain more respect for it.”