Worcester Warriors: Ealing clear favourites for semi-final

Worcester now face the biggest test of the season so far in trying to topple a side who finished 30 points clear of the rest at the end of the league campaign.

But they can take encouragement from the two meetings in the Champ.

In January, Warriors missed a match-winning penalty in the final minute as Ealing edged it by one point and then in the penultimate league game earlier this month the defending champions rallied in the last 10 minutes to clinch a 34-28 victory.

“They are a Premiership outfit with Premiership resource and players. They’ve not played in two weeks and it’s at their home ground, so all the credits are on their side in regards to being definite favourites,” Everard said.

“We’ll go and we’ll give it absolutely everything. We’re really excited.”

Everard said being the underdog is not something that bothers him or the squad.

“We haven’t spoken about it, we try to stay really consistent with process and performance and how we need to improve again from the Chinnor game.

“I’ve been involved in teams before where people try and say ‘Oh, it’s just another game’ – absolute rubbish. It’s a semi-final. It’s different.

“We know there’s going to be a lift in intensity for both teams, but we also know the challenges ahead.

“We’ve had some really good areas of our performance in both games [against Ealing] that have probably grown throughout the season.

“It’s the learnings to what we didn’t quite get right in the most recent fixture we need to address.”