DIRECTOR of cricket Steve Rhodes is confident Worcestershire will produce a better showing against Sussex at Hove in their second LV= County Championship Division One fixture on Sunday (11am).

Worcestershire suffered a 10-wicket drubbing against champions Yorkshire at New Road on their return to the top tier.

Sussex, whose side included for England trio Michael Yardy, Ed Joyce and Luke Wright, completed a 92-run win over promoted Hampshire in their curtain-raiser at the Ageas Bowl.

Rhodes said: “Not many people know a lot about this team and I’m optimistic we will pick up a better performance.

“The great thing for all our players is it is a learning curve and a good challenge and it sets the benchmark for what we want to try and achieve in this division.

“But we are also aware of how tough it is going to be as well and we are going to have to ride through sessions and fight through them.

He continued: “On the first two days against Yorkshire there were a lot of promising things and it wasn’t though the players didn’t know that potentially they were going to come hard at us at some stage.

"That bowling could well have destroyed quite a few batting line-ups in Division One. It is one defeat - we are going to lose games in this division, we know that.”

Worcestershire could be without England all-rounder Moeen Ali, who hit 62 in their first innings against Yorkshire.

Moeen bowled 11 overs in the match and might be poised for a recall into the England set-up after injury.

Rhodes said: “We don’t know about Moeen. We’ve had nothing from the ECB yet. He showed in the first innings with his batting that he is in reasonable nick and he has bowled a few overs.

“He probably hasn’t bowled as many as he would have liked but if England want him, he is their player, he is centrally contracted to England, they will call for him.”

Rhodes is expecting a tough battle against Sussex, who have a strong attack led by Ajmal Shahzad and Steven Magoffin, who had a spell with Worcestershire in 2008.

“Sussex will have quite an aggressive attack,” said Rhodes.

“They’ve got a reasonable pace attack which will be a challenge but we will focus hard on improving some of the areas we can improve.

“If they play on one of the new wickets there, the ball will really go through. We will be ready for that. We know what to expect.”