Gillies says the Championship is more competitive than a few years ago

Worcester forward Craig Gillies says the Warriors are not underestimating how difficult it will be to get out of the Championship this season.

"There are a lot of good players and teams," he said. "It's an exceptionally strong competition and over the past few years it's grown even stronger.

"There's also another thing we have to face up to, that we will be the scalp everyone wants to take.

"Everyone will raise their game for the matches against us."

The experienced second-row forward was a part of the Sixways side that last gained promotion to the Premiership in 2003/04.

Warriors won all their games that season but Gillies, 34, expects a far sterner test this time around.

"It was a tough competition six or seven years ago when we got promoted [although] we did win 26 out of 26 games.

"The season previous to that I think we lost only three games and missed out on promotion by three points."

Gillies says the play-off system makes promotion much harder but believes the Warriors "just need to take each game as it comes and make sure we're constantly improving and setting high standards and maintaining those throughout the season."

Warriors begin their campaign at home to Birmingham Solihull on August 28.

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