Sanderson: Write us off at your peril
September 10 2009
Worcester captain Pat Sanderson has dismissed the critics who have tipped his team to suffer Guinness Premiership relegation this season.
The Warriors will take over as Premiership leaders - albeit for probably less than 24 hours - if they beat Sixways visitors Leeds Carnegie tomorrow night.
And after pushing Northampton to the brink of a rare home defeat last weekend before wing Paul Diggin's late try saved Saints, Worcester made an immediate statement.
"I don't care what people think about us," said England flanker Sanderson.
"I know what the players in the dressing room think, and we know we are competitive.
"We came up against a side in Northampton who are tipped for honours this season, and we should have won.
"We will just keep quiet and get on with our job. Everyone else is talking things over, but we will get on with it.
"Hopefully (on Friday), we will produce the same sort of physicality, same sort of game-plan and then we will be off and running down the road.
"We believe in the strength and quality of the players that we have got. We showed against Saints that we can do it - it's just a question of consistency."
And Worcester have received a huge boost following that 20-17 reversal with the return of their powerful New Zealand midfield organiser Sam Tuitupou.
The former All Blacks centre makes his first Premiership appearance since suffering a serious knee injury late last year, replacing Greg King in the number 12 shirt.
French prop Oliver Sourgens, meanwhile, misses out because of a knee injury that could require minor surgery. His place is taken by Tevita Taumoepeau.
Leeds ground out a 9-9 draw against Newcastle on their Premiership return four days ago, and they show two changes from that game with hooker Rob Rawlinson and number eight Alfie To'oala both called up.
"We take a lot of positives from the Newcastle game," said Leeds head coach Neil Back.
"One of our aims last season was to build a side that can play for 80-plus minutes and grow stronger as the game goes on, and I think we did that on Sunday.
"We were the team attacking for the win in the final quarter.
"Worcester will be very strong up front, and we will need to gain parity there to give ourselves a platform to play off.
"We had some issues with our scrum in the first half against Newcastle, but we have done some work on that this week and it is a problem that can be resolved pretty quickly.
"Some of the issues were to do with our timings and getting used to what the referees are looking for in the Premiership, and we have talked about that this week."