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Thinus Delport: Set to line up against his former club, Gloucester.

WARRIORS haven't got a game this weekend, but we have been working hard in training on our preparation for the Gloucester game.

Worcester versus Gloucester is now one of the great local derbies in the Guinness Premiership We have not beaten Gloucester in the league and that is something we are de-termined to put right. We are also determined to keep moving forward and build something special here at Sixways.

Having played for the opposition before can add an extra edge for players, but our lads who have played for Gloucester in the past - Thinus Delport, Marcel Garvey, Reg (Tony Windo) and Chris Fortey - are now Worcester through-and-through and it won't effect them.

There is no love lost between the two sets of players on the field and that's the way it should be. However, a lot of the players from both sides live along the M5 corridor and we often see each other in Cheltenham. There won't be any players from the losing side in the local coffee shop for a while after the game though!

We are moving forward as a club now and some aspects of our game are in really good shape, so this match is massive for us.

It is a local derby and will be a really exciting day and we must remain focused. We certainly don't need to give our fans a rallying call for a game like this. We never take them for granted and we appreciate them massively - they are a big part of the club.

It was certainly very frustrating not to win against Leeds, but we have to take the positives and a draw was a far better result for us than it was for them.

Our state of mind is to look at the last three games in a context where we have picked up 10 points and gone unbeaten through March.

If you'd said to us three weeks ago that we would pick up 10 points from our next three games, we would have snapped your hand off.

Against Leeds, we had some pretty tired bodies out on the pitch and the conditions were attrocious - some of the worst we've faced all season.

We knew how to play to beat Leeds, but it wasn't possible in those conditions.

We didn't go out there with a forward-orientated game-plan, but we had to adapt to the conditions in front of us on the day. There was a strong wind and it was incredibly wet, which limited what we could do.

Also, there were four times when we crossed the line and the decision went to the television match official, so we must have done something right.

We were playing a team that absolutely had to win and anything less than that was a failure for them. In fairness to Leeds, they defended well, but we had 70 per cent possession and 60 per cent territory as well as getting over their line four times - so it was down to us missing our opportunities.

When we decided to go for touch with the late penalty we won, we thought that we had worked very hard for the field position we had and - in those conditions - a shot at goal had only about a 10 per cent chance of success.

If we'd missed they would have been able to drive the ball right back into our half, so we opted to go for the corner and keep the field position.

9:15am Thursday 20th March 2008

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