Worcester Warriors 16, Bath Rugby 7

Languishing just one place off the foot of the table before kick off, Worcester Warriors may be some people's tip for relegation. But on the basis of tonight's lethargic and unimaginative showing, it is Bath Rugby who are keen on doing an excellent impersonation of a side fancying a taste of demotion.

The look on captain Stuart Hooper's face after the final whistle said it all. Standing on the touchline with his hands on his hips, a strobe machine would have struggled to make him blink. The lock looked gobsmacked, unable to comprehend the myriad failings he had just witnessed.

True, Bath had to start prop Mark Lilley out of position at hooker following an injury crisis. True, Stephen Donald is still new to the club and the English game and no doubt still finding his feet. True, Bath had to play just five days after a gruelling scrap with Montpellier. But this was Bath without guile, without cohesion and without flair.

There were positive contributions amid the dark Midlands night. Academy wing Olly Woodburn continues to show the older hands how it's done, Francois Louw put in the hard yards when he wasn't scrapping with his backrow adversary Sam Betty, while Charlie Beech was Bath's stand-out front rower, even when he was pushed back to the second row when a horrendous-looking injury to Dave Attwood necessitated a drastic shuffling of the pack.

The game was held up for more than quarter-of-an-hour after Attwood suffered a suspected neck injury midway through the second half. The lock went down following a challenge, got back to his feet and then collapsed. Almost a dozen medics attended to him, and Attwood was eventually carried off the pitch on a spinal board while receiving gas and air. Fortunately, the word from the Bath camp after the final whistle was that he was sitting up and that he would be discharged from hospital later tonight.

To add to the casualty list, Lewis Moody went off with injuries to his head and shoulder, wing Tom Biggs came off with his wrist wrapped in ice, and Lilley – who endured a torrid time in the lineout – also came off after hitting the ground in a heap.

Attwood's injury was a terrible incident and it marred an already grim evening for Bath. The match was not a good advert for Aviva Premiership rugby. Worcester coach Richard Hill lauded his side's performance and they deserved to bag the points, but they had to do little to secure them. 

"We asked for our best game, and I think we did deliver our best game this season," said Hill. "We didn't look jittery and everybody looked comfortable on the ball. We played with confidence and had good ball retention."

The same could not be said of the visitors. Bath could not hang on to the ball in the first half and gave away far too many penalties at the breakdown. There was a general unease among the backs, typified by an out-of-sorts display by All Black Donald, who looked like his jet lag had kicked in a fortnight late.

Both sides lacked penetration for most of the first half, but it was the intelligent game management by Worcester's half backs – Shaun Perry and Joe Carlisle – that gave the Warriors the edge.

Carlisle kicked the hosts into the lead in the tenth minute. The tone for the evening was set by Donald missing two relatively straight-forward opportunities to level the scores.

With just 10 seconds of the half remaining, a neat pop pass by Carlisle released Miles Benjamin who was on the burst. Lilley couldn't cling on to the winger's shirt and Benjamin rounded Bath full-back Nick Abendanon with ease to score the converted try that was nothing less than the Warriors deserved.

Bath upped the tempo a touch in the second half and had chances, most notably when Louw burst through midfield, but the final pass was never close to being accurate enough.

Carlisle extended Worcester's lead to 13-0 midway through the second period with a simple penalty, but a shaft of hope for Bath was provided by a well-worked driven maul that resulted in the television match official awarding a try to the hard-grafting Beech. Olly Barkley, on for Sam Vesty, struck the conversion beautifully. Suddenly, and almost unaccountably, Bath were within a converted score of poaching the match.

But it wasn't to be - and such an eventuality would have been unjust on Worcester. Bath tried to run the ball from behind their own try-line and after much huffing and puffing the ploy hideously backfired. A pass by Barkley was intercepted and any hope of Bath heading back south with a losing bonus point was snuffed out when former England fly half Andy Goode, on as a replacement, slotted a drop goal.

It was the final nail in the coffin, and Bath will have taken to the M5 with a lengthy session of  soul-searching ahead of them this weekend. 

Worcester Warriors: 15 Errie Claassens, 14 Marcel Garvey, 13 Alex Grove, 12 Dale Rasmussen (c), 11 Miles Benjamin, 10 Joe Carlisle, 9 Shaun Perry, 1 Matt Mullan, 2 Ed Shervington, 3 Tevita Taumoepeau, 4 Chris Jones, 5 Craig Gillies, 6 Neil Best, 7 Sam Betty, 8 Matt Kvesic

Replacements: 16 Bruce Douglas,17 Aleki Lutui, 18 James Currie,19 Ben Gulliver, 20 Jake Abbott, 21 Jonny Arr, 22 Andy Goode, 23 Chris Pennell

Bath Rugby15 Nick Abendanon, 14 Olly Woodburn, 13 Dan Hipkiss, 12 Sam Vesty, 11 Tom Biggs,  10 Stephen Donald, 9 Michael Claassens; 1 Charlie Beech, 2 Mark Lilley, 3 Anthony Perenise, 4 Dave Attwood, 5 Ryan Caldwell, 6 Francois Louw, 7 Lewis Moody (c), 8 Simon Taylor

Replacements 16 Will Tanner, 17 David Flatman, 18 David Wilson, 19 Stuart Hooper, 20 Guy Mercer, 21 Mark McMillan, 22 Olly Barkley, 23 Jack Cuthbert

Referee: Martin Fox

Attendance: 10,694