WORCESTER Warriors director of rugby Dean Ryan is backing his players to find their feet in the Premiership.

Warriors are third from bottom and face a titanic clash at basement boys London Irish tomorrow (1pm) as the campaign reaches the halfway mark.

Worcester have won just two out of 10 league matches since promotion and, worryingly for fans, still seek an elusive first away success.

“I am 100 per cent supportive of this group finding their feet in the Premiership and making some mistakes along the way,” said Ryan.

“Otherwise, we are operating on a completely different set of expectations and I am afraid some of those might be unrealistic if we think we have found every person who gets things 100 per cent right.

“Tommy (Heathcote) is playing very well for us and has goal-kicked very well. We have good goal-kickers here and good players.

“The players are young and inexperienced and they do make some mistakes and sometimes we have to work our way through.”

Warriors head into their second test in a run of 10 back-to-back league fixtures that will ultimately decide their fate in the top tier After the battle with Irish, Warriors host inconsistent Bath at Sixways, while the 10-game run also includes a vital trip to Newcastle Falcons.

Ryan said: “We always said the 10 successive weeks would be the biggest challenge for the whole of the Premiership and for us, as a former Championship club, more so just because our layers of depth are not in the same place as everyone else.

“In some ways we’ve confirmed that with our European Challenge Cup form.

“We need people fit over the 10 weeks so, however much we are wishing for performances, we are also wishing for a little bit of good luck and fingers crossed that our main guys stay fit.”

He added: “I had a good chat with Rob Baxter (Exeter head coach) after the game last weekend and it has taken them seven years to get to where they are.

“Along the way they have brought people in like Geoff Parling and Thomas Waldrom. Those individuals keep adding layers on to a system that has been pretty good from the outset.

“Exeter are in a different place than us at the moment. They showed the gap at the top level and why they are near the top and we are not.”