Punch-up Betty gives Warriors an uphill battle

SAM Betty’s dismissal in the 14th minute ruined Worcester’s chances of progressing further in this season’s competition.

Back rower Betty was struck first by Nick Croswell but responded with a flurry of blows to his opponent’s head.

Worcester coach Sam Vesty said: “Retaliation doesn’t work in rugby and when you strike someone in the face, there’s only going to be one result.

“The red card really hurt us; however we remained in the game for a long period but the loss of Sam eventually counted as we couldn’t defend the extra space.

“Unless there are some freakish results to come, we are out of the tournament, which is hugely disappointing. We haven’t been consistent enough.”

A close game looked likely prior to Betty’s red card with both sides scoring early converted tries.

Connor Braid was first on the scoresheet, capitalising on a stray pass to fly-hack through and narrowly beat Tom Prydie to the touchdown.

Dragons responded through an excellent break from Geraint RhysJones with Tavis Knoyle on hand to dart over.

Following Betty’s departure, Angus O’Brien missed a simple penalty before Dragons went down to 14 after Ollie Griffiths was yellow carded for dragging down a maul.

That Worcester drive was in full flow and a penalty try should have been awarded but an O’Brien penalty was the next score to give Dragons a 10-7 interval lead.

Dragons’ scrum was became increasingly dominant, in contrast to last week’s reverse at Sixways when their scrum was battered into conceding two penalty tries in a 33-20 defeat.

Warriors chose to rest props Val Rapava Ruskin and Biyi Alo which proved costly as Sam Hobbs gave Mike Daniels a miserable night in the set-piece.

Their second half dominance was rewarded with two tries. Within a minute of coming on, Tyler Morgan finished off a skilful handling move with a 30m burst before Hobbs claimed the second from a driving line-out.

Dragons coach Kingsley Jones said: “Our performance in the scrum and line-out was much improved and that’s five home wins in a row.

“The red card changed the game but Worcester were still very dogged throughout.”