Worcester Warriors: CEO Stephen Vaughan wants big Sixways crowd to help in play-offs

Worcester Warriors chief executive Stephen Vaughan says he would have “bitten your hand off” if he had been offered a place in the Champ play-offs a year ago when the club was about to make its comeback.

Back then, Worcester’s most recent owners had spent nearly two years planning the former Premiership club’s return to competitive rugby after it went out of business due to financial problems under a previous regime in September 2022.

Now, after a fourth-placed finish in the club’s first season back, a potential semi-final spot is up for grabs if they can beat Chinnor, who finished fifth, in their quarter-final tie at Sixways on Saturday.

“If you’d have said to me in March last year, sat in this room with no coaches, no staff, no sponsors, no kit, no ticket office, nothing, I probably would have bitten your hand off to be up and running, never mind finishing anywhere,” Vaughan told BBC Hereford and Worcester.

“But of course, we pulled the team together and were really hoping to be competitive.”

Warriors have certainly been that, winning 15 of their first 22 Champ matches to go second behind all-conquering runaway leaders Ealing Trailfinders.

It could have been even better for Worcester, who were second with four games to go and in touching distance of a bye straight into a home semi-final tie.

But all of those four games were lost as they slipped behind both Bedford and Coventry – the latter hammering Warriors 64-28 on the final day, which Vaughan called “a bit of a horror show”.

“We landed in second place with not too far to go, in our own hands,” he added. “Of course, we then had designs on [second place], but we were never going to finish first; Ealing had run away with it.

“We had to play all the teams around us, and we played well against Ealing [in the penultimate game], but I think we’ve let ourselves down probably in the other games, and none more so than Coventry on Saturday.

“You’ve got to take accountability for it, and it’s now about that reaction.”