Yapp hoping Darlington trip brings squad closer together

Jo Yapp is hoping her Warriors Women squad can use the long trip to Darlington Mowden Park Sharks to further bond as a team.

Yapp’s side travel north on Friday night ahead of the match with the Sharks on Saturday (kick-off 1.00pm).

This will be the first time that Warriors Women will have an overnight stop and their new Director of Rugby is hoping they can use it to their advantage.

“To expect the girls to get up at four or five in the morning is not great preparation so we made the decision to go up the night before,” Yapp said.

“The more time they can spend together as a squad is really important for them in terms of building that team spirit.

“Darlington bring a really big challenge. They had a good result last weekend against Richmond. It’s going to be tough, it’s not an easy place to go, but we’re looking forward to the challenge.

“We just have to take one step at a time. There are obviously lots of work-ons from last weekend but we can only fix so much in a week.

“There’s certain areas that we are really focusing on to try and improve on, but it just has to be one step at a time.”

Despite the disappointment of a loss against Gloucester-Hartpury last week, Yapp was pleased to see England internationals Lydia Thompson and Laura Keates make their first appearances of the campaign.

“It was great to see those guys back on the field, they’re obviously Worcester through and through and have been at the club for a long time,” she added, “to have that experience coming back is really good for us.

“The girls are learning and developing all the time but to have the people on the field with experience they have is great for the other players to learn from.

“We’ve learnt an awful lot from the Gloucester game, both on and off the field and moving forward things that we can do differently. We’re looking forward to this Saturday.”

The clash with Sharks will be the last before the Tyrrells Premier 15s breaks up for the November internationals, with the Warriors boss eyeing that time as being perfect to get more of her ideas across to the team.

“We’re looking forward to that November break, I think the players are ready to have a bit of a rest if I’m honest,” she said.

“It’s been a tough time of pre-season into games, we’ve had a few double headers, so having a bit of a break for them.

“Then we’ll get them back into training where we can focus on how we want to play that second-half of the season.”

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