Warriors victorious at Sixways in Champ quarter-final

Worcester Warriors were victorious at Sixways over Chinnor to progress to the Elior Champ Rugby semi-final.

Warriors fought back from a 22-14 deficit to score three second-half tries, which secured victory.

In a niggly first fifteen minutes, which saw Chinnor start strongly, it was the Warriors who took the lead when Siva Naulago spotted the gap at the ruck to pick and go and run in from forty metres.

Chinnor got themselves back in the game, crossing for two quick tries, first James Bourton scored out wide after a cross-field kick from Callum Pascoe before Alun Walker added his side's second from the back of a driving maul to give the visitors the lead.

The lead continued to change hands with the Warriors heading to a driving maul of their own, with Austin Wallis breaking off the maul to crash over to put Worcester back ahead.

But the lead didn’t last long as on the stroke of half-time Chinnor’s former Worcester prop Kai Owen burrowed over under the sticks, with Nathan Chamberlain adding his second conversion to send Chinnor five points ahead at half-time.

Eight minutes into the second period, Chamberlain extended Chinnor’s lead to two scores with a penalty, with the next score pivotal to the tie.

Hugh Bokenham disrupted a Chinnor driving maul to win a turnover, stunting the visitors' momentum – the Warriors turned the screw with flanker Tim Anstee crashing over after a huge build-up of pressure and penalty advantage, which saw the visitors' Conor Brockschmidt see yellow.

And with Brockschmidt still in the sin-bin, Worcester re-took the lead with a magic break from replacement prop Tim Hoyt breaking through the Chinnor defensive line before throwing the final offload to Josh Bassett to run in.

The visitors came back at the Warriors and with Billy Twelvetrees sent to the sin-bin for an offence at maul-time, the momentum could have switched, but huge defensive moments from Naulago and Thabo Ndimande forced errors and turnovers.

And another moment of defensive brilliance from Naulago brought the decisive match-winner for Worcester, with his huge tackle forcing a spilt pass which was claimed by a Warriors attacker before he mirrored his first try and picked from the base to finish brilliantly.

Chinnor landed one last try at the death with replacement hooker Luke Thompson crossing from a driving maul.

But the Warriors were victorious and head to next week’s semi-final at Ealing.

Warriors 35

T – Siva Naulago 17’, 77’, Austin Wallis 34’, Tim Anstee 59’, Josh Bassett 64’

C – Billy Twelvetrees 17’, 34’, 59’, 64’, Will Reed 77’

YC – Billy Twelvetrees 72’

Chinnor 29

T – James Bourton 25’, Alun Walker 29’, Kai Owen 40’, Luke Thompson 80’

C – Nathan Chamberlain 29’, 40’, 80’

P – Nathan Chamberlain 48’

YC – Conor Brockschmidt 59’

Warriors XV

15 Louis Brown, 14 Jake Garside, 13 Siva Naulago, 12 Billy Twelvetrees, 11 Josh Bassett (Rory Taylor 75’), 10 Will Reed (Tiff Eden 79’), 9 Lloyd Williams (Will Lane 79’); 1 Billy Keast (Livai Natave 46’), 2 Austin Wallis (Jasper Spandler 73’), 3 Ashley Challenger (Tim Hoyt 59’), 4 Hallam Chapman (Thabo Ndimande 69’), 5 James Tyas, 6 Tim Anstee, 7 Matt Kvesic ©, 8 Matt Rogerson (Hugh Bokenham 42’)

Chinnor XV

15 Oscar Yandall, 14 Grant Hughes, 13 Tom Watson, 12 James Bourton (Sam Hanks 77’), 11 Kieran Goss, 10 Nathan Chamberlain, 9 Callum Pascoe (Luke Carter 59’); 1 Kai Owen (Ramaz Rukhadze 46’), 2 Alun Walker (c) (Luke Thompson 77’), 3 Kabous Bezuidenhout (Robin Hardwick 44’), 4 Jamie Campbell, 5 Connor Brockschmidt (Willie Ryan 70’), 6 Harry Dugmore (Karl Main 75’), 7 Will Cave, 8 Cameron Rafferty (George Stokes 53’)