Aviva Prem: End Of Season Report Cards - Worcester Warriors

So, barring the fat Lady who is limbering up for her appearance at Twickenham next weekend, the 2012/13 Aviva Premiership season is in the books and I thought it would be a good time to start to look at how each team has fared, whilst running the well trodden 'School Report' thread through it. 

I'll look at each team in reverse finishing order, looking at what went well, what didn't, stand out players and areas for improvement for the coming season:

Worcester Warriors

Final Position: 11th
P: 22	W: 5	L: 16	D: 1	F: 422	A: 547	Pts: 33

Plus Marks:

Well, really, I would suppose surviving in the Premiership has been the best thing about Worcester's season. Worcester, as one of the 'smaller' teams in the division always seem fated to struggle, but really with the quality of team that they could put out, it seems a bit hard to understand why they were.  This appears to be a view shared by Chairman Cecil Duckworth, who lost patience and instigated a parting of the ways with DOR Richard Hill towards the back end of the season.

It really was a season that started off promising, well, not a lot, and delivered on all fronts!  With only two wins from their opening 8 games (against London Irish and Sale, both of whom at that point would not have been able to beat the Old Albanians Girls u14 2nd XV) their season really only was saved by an inexplicable win against Wasps late on and London Welsh's well documented woes.

Perhaps the single most impressive thing about Worcester has been their repeated development of young English talent over the last few years, more of which we will unfortunately cover in the detention section.

Detentions:

Having just lauded Worcester's ability to identify, recruit and develop some very impressive rugby players, the biggest worry for them must surely be that even though they seek to establish themselves in the top flight, they seem to be unable to avoid the tag of being a feeder team to the more prestigious teams that they are trying to become peers with. The end of this season sees academy products Matt Kvesic join Gloucester and Joe Carlisle join Wasps, following the likes of Tom Wood, Miles Benjamin and Graham Kitchener who all came through the Worcester Academy before having their heads turned by 'bigger' clubs.  If Worcester wish to cement in the Premiership then they need to find a way to put a stop what is essentially a misdirection of funds.  Perhaps the new coaching team can better sell a vision of the future to their next class of starlets.

On the pitch one of Worcester's worst problems this year has been their inability to cross the try line - their total of 35 is the second lowest.  To put this in perspective, they scored 12 tries less than Wasps, the lowest placed team who were not involved in the relegation picture.

Andy Goode's hair.

Head Boy:

His hair makes him look like an extra in a 1970s cop movie, and he may think that is 2002 and therefore still acceptable to wear grip mitts, but Andy Goode has once again proven that he is one of the most dependable fly halves in the business, and his contribution with the boot has been crucial for Worcester - I came across a graphic a while back that showed that he has scored a higher percentage of his team's total points than any other player in the Premiership this year. 
But as important as Goode was, the revelation this season has been home grown open side Matt Kvesic.  Walking away from Sixways to Gloucester with both the Player of the year and Players' Player of the year awards in his pocket, he is one of the few genuine 'fetcher' type 7s in the English game, and could be the breakout on the England summer tour in the absence of some senior players.  Kvesic, Qera and Kalimafoni will give Gloucester one of the best balanced back rows in the league.

Predicted Grades Next Year:

Another mixed bag for Worcester next season I fear.  The incoming Dean Ryan will bring a new broom.  He is a coach I have a lot of time for, and is assembling a team of coaches to match - Shane Howarth coming in from free scoring Wasps to run his rule over the backline should go some way to correcting their inadequacies in scoring tries.

But a quick look at the players leaving the club this season is a worry.  As well as Kvesic and Carlisle, a number of senior figures are on their way out to different destinations: Andy Goode (Wasps), Matt Mullan (Wasps), Shaun Perry (retired), Aleki Lutui (Edinburgh) and Nikki Walker (Edinburgh) represent the vast majority of their senior player group, and this has to be a worry.  Hopefully for Worcester this outpouring of seniority is papered over by the incoming management team. 
With Newcastle likely to come up and reinforce their squad heavily, I would put Worcester as my firm favourite for the drop next year.