Wednesday 6 December 2017

Gary Gold: Alan Solomons has got Worcester Warriors playing attacking rugby again

Worcester will attack their way to Aviva Premiership survival, says boss Gary Gold.

Director of rugby Gold says the arrival of assistant coach Alan Solomons in mid-October has resulted in the Warriors refocusing on their attacking game.

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The hugely experienced Solomons – like Gold, a former South Africa assistant coach – was appointed on a short-term contract, and immediately identified that Worcester should forego a policy of defence-first and instead play more expansively.

The first fruits of that policy were shown on November 18, when an impressive display saw the Warriors chalk up their first league win of the season with a bonus-pointdefeat of Northampton.

And Gold says opposition sides and supporters can expect more of the same attacking brio from the Warriors.

Gold said: “During our games in Europe and the Anglo-Welsh Cup, we didn’t think our processes were going in the right direction – the balance wasn’t right.

“We’d gone too much away from our strength, which is our attack and wanting to score tries.

“When Alan came in it was an observation that he made which was really helpful and it moved the pendulum a bit, and against Northampton you could see that it looked like the guys wanted to score tries.”

The attacking philosophy of Solomons, who has also coached Ulster, Southern Kings and Edinburgh, is going down well with the Warriors’ former New Zealand Sevens star Bryce Heem, who scored a hat-trick against Saints.

“With the players we’ve got in our backline, every player is dangerous,” said winger Heem. “We’re not going to run everything from everywhere, but when it’s time to go we’ll take it and we’ve got the skillset to do it.

“Alan’s guided from a bit of a backseat and the coaches who are already in position have been doing their thing.

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“His impact has helped us attack a bit more, realise when there are opportunities, and take them.”

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