Worcester Wanderers dominated the territory in the second half to ease away from Burton and record a bonus point win.
Burton made a very bright start to the game with a light breeze at their backs. Joe Gazzard claimed the kick off under pressure and his colleagues in the pack provided decent quality ball for Scrum Half Eddie Nicholls. Gazzard, Craig Dutton and Jeri Oldfield took play over half way before Harry Titley and the backs were brought into proceedings. Ball retention was excellent as Burton went through multi phases making ground each time. Matt Davies, James Davies and Tom Murphy were involved before Worcester strayed off-side. In his first game for several weeks Dave Archer was unable to find the target from the tee and the same was to happen only minutes later.
Worcester cleared their lines and then missed a relatively simple penalty chance. Neither side established dominance and this appeared to stem from the penalty count at the scrummage. Both sides were being penalised and the muddy conditions led to repeated handling errors. Consequently the game was not flowing. Jack Handy and Elliot Grant the Burton wings were largely restricted to defensive duties.
Worcester broke the deadlock after a spell of pressure. On the Burton twenty two taking the hosts were passing the ball from left to right before their Blind-side flanker cut back in and evaded the flailing arms of defenders to score beside the posts. The kick was sliced wide of the posts.
Play was in the middle of the field for a spell before Matt Tivey caught an attempt to chip over his head and made ground to find Jack Neal on his shoulder. Worcester were penalised forty metres from line and Archer zeroed in on the target this time and opened his account.
Titley kicked a penalty to touch on the opponents twenty two. James Davies found Ed Henry at the tail and the Burton pack drove forward. Nicholls fed Titley playing flat to the gain line and he passed flat to the on-rushing Archer who broke through and jinked past the Full Back for a superb score. The conversion was a formality for Archer.
Tivey injured his ankle and was replaced by Adam Smith. Worcester kept their noses in front with a penalty.
In the closing moments of the half Worcester applied pressure to create an overlap on the left wing but chose to ignore it. Burton contained the attack but from the next phase Worcester probed the narrow side and bundled over to score in the corner. After missing a very simple conversion earlier this time the ball sailed through the posts from the touch-line. The half-time score-line was 15-10 and the game was there for either to side too take by the scruff of the neck in the second-half.
Burton spent long periods after the break in their own half. Pancho Zeleme replaced Murphy at Prop. The pace of the game picked up but it was a littered with handling errors and penalties. It was twenty minutes before Worcester increased their lead. Burton had defended for a period of time when their defensive line was pierced in the centre of the field and despite taking two Burton defenders with him the Centre did well to ground the ball. The conversion extended the lead to twelve points.
Burton could only briefly escape from their half before being pushed back. The scrum was still an issue. Burton were penalised for boring in when going forward. Billy Peach replaced Handy and the line was shuffled to use him at Fly Half. Burton had more urgency to their play but there was little penetration as passes went off target. Worcester re-established their territorial dominance and appeared on the verge of scoring only to pass forward with the line beckoning.
Worcester secured a bonus point by crashing over near the left wing. The conversion was missed and the game ended 27-10 in the favour the hosts. The defeat and the postponement last week places Burton in eight position and incredible shift from topping the table so recently.