Richard Hill has called on his Worcester Warriors to up their performances when they travel to league new boys Esher in the RFU Championship on Saturday – insisting: “We have not stamped our mark on the league yet.”
Warriors have won three out of three in the division and Hill has declared himself ‘reasonably happy’ with the start to the new campaign.
The Head Coach has reiterated the importance of the club peaking at the right time and making sure they continue to improve throughout the entire season as they head into the play-offs.
However, he acknowledges there is a growing expectation to win within the Sixways camp and the squad is determined to get better after narrow victories over Plymouth Albion and Rotherham Titans.
There is a long way to go and we must keep working at it, keep managing the squad and rotating them to find the best 15,” he said.
“There is no point peaking in September. We would all love to play sparkling rugby and be absolutely brilliant, but the key thing for me is to keep seeing the player’s character and keep winning games and getting better.
“As people keep telling me and Bristol will tell you, it’s all very well being brilliant in September, October and November but the important time is in March, April and May. We must play the good stuff in the second half of the season. If we can do it before that is brilliant.”
“All three games have been tough so far and we have not performed as well as we will in the future. We have not imposed ourselves on the Championship, not stamped our mark on the league yet,” added Hill.
“However, we are three wins out of three and it’s important when you are trying to introduce new aspects of play and strategies that you keep winning.
“I’m reasonably happy that a lot of work has been done and a lot of work is still to be done. We have by no means clicked as we will do, but the side have shown good character to twice come from behind to win.
“We are seeing the confidence grow and there is an expectation to win now. After three wins I can sense that going away to Esher the side expects to do better than we have done.
“A lot of teams will try and work out ways to stop us playing. Any team in this league in the right mind will not give us ball to play with as we have a dangerous attack with lots of pace.
“Home and away it is going to be tough. Speaking to the Rotherham staff after the game they said they had never seen the team play as well as that in three years, it was by far and away their best performance.
“That is little consolation to us, but does show the effort that these teams will put in. You often find they will produce the best performance against Worcester because they raise their game.
“After the A game with Northampton I spoke to Jim Mallinder, Dorian West and Paul Grayson and they all asked what the Championship was like. They have been through it, when every team wanted to beat Northampton. Every game is a battle and we are learning how to deal with that.”