Taulava recalled as Warriors hit Franklin’s Gardens
Giant Number Eight Semisi Taulava is recalled to the starting line-up as Worcester Warriors make the trip across the Midlands to face Northampton Saints at Franklin’s Gardens in the Aviva Premiership on Saturday (kick-off 3pm).
Taulava, a summer recruit from Rotherham Titans, has impressed since making the step up to the English elite and is the only change by Head Coach Richard Hill to the side that drew the derby with Gloucester Rugby last weekend.
Hill insists his Warriors are looking forward to the trip across the Midlands after an encouraging performance against Gloucester that saw Worcester only denied a first win of the season by a late penalty.
And he revealed he is hoping for more of a cutting edge from his team as they look to finish off the incisive attacking rugby they have been playing over the first three weeks of the season.
“We’ve done a lot of work on trying to manoeuvre opposition defences to find the holes. We’re obviously doing that now because we’ve made line breaks in all the matches we’ve played in,” he said.
“A huge amount of work this week has gone into to having the right mentality, to expect players to make those breaks and when they do have someone on the shoulder.
“If we had someone on the shoulder of Alex Grove, Nikki Walker and Chris Jones when they made their breaks against Gloucester then we would have finished them off.
“Franklin’s Gardens is a very special place to go and they play in a very particular way,” added Hill.
“We’ve seen Northampton play against Exeter and Gloucester, two very good packs, and they’ve driven them for fun. They’ve been completely dominant in their forward pack so we have got to match that.”
Warriors vs. Northampton Saints
15 Chris Pennell
14 Nikki Walker
13 Alex Grove
12 Joe Carlisle
11 David Lemi
10 Andy Goode
9 Shaun Perry
1 Matt Mullan
2 Aleki Lutui
3 John Andress
4 James Percival
5 Dean Schofield (c)
6 Chris Jones
7 Sam Betty
8 Semisi Taulava
Replacements
16 Ollie Hayes
17 Ceri Jones
18 James Currie
19 Craig Gillies
20 Matt Kvesic
21 Jonny Arr
22 Josh Matavesi
23 Josh Drauniniu
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