Worcester will give everything at Ealing - Everard

Worcester Warriors head coach Matt Everard says his team will give "everything" to try to upset "out-and-out favourites" Ealing in Saturday's Champ play-off semi-final.

Warriors set up the showdown with the runaway league leaders after a 35-29 win over Chinnor in their quarter-final at Sixways last weekend.

Ealing, who won all 26 league games this season have home advantage for the match with the winners facing either Bedford or Coventry, who meet on Friday, in the final on 31 May.

"The way in which they play, and clearly prepare, and what they've achieved throughout this season in regards to the unbeaten record makes them out and out favourites to win the competition," Everard told BBC Hereford and Worcester.

"Credit to them, that is no mean feat, I think, in rugby, but also in any sport, to win that many games consecutively - they've had a superb season."

Everard said he was "extremely proud" of his side's effort in seeing off Chinnor, who had done the double over Warriors in the regular season, running in five tries on their way to sealing their six-point win.

That performance followed a bruising end to the campaign that saw Worcester lose their last four matches and Everard said he was delighted with the way his side responded.

"I thought our physicality was superb. I think on the four games we didn't win we've just consistently reflected on where we're at and what we need to improve on," he said.

"I've said a few times progression isn't a straight line, there's peaks and troughs but I thought we had a really strong performance."

Worcester now face the biggest test of the season so far in trying to topple a side who finished 30 points clear of the rest at the end of the league campaign.

But they can take encouragement from the two meetings in the Champ.

In January, Warriors missed a match-winning penalty in the final minute as Ealing edged it by one point and then in the penultimate league game earlier this month the defending champions rallied in the last 10 minutes to clinch a 34-28 victory.

"They are a Premiership outfit with Premiership resource and players. They've not played in two weeks and it's at their home ground, so all the credits are on their side in regards to being definite favourites," Everard said.

"We'll go and we'll give it absolutely everything. We're really excited."

Everard said being the underdog is not something that bothers him or the squad.

"We haven't spoken about it, we try to stay really consistent with process and performance and how we need to improve again from the Chinnor game.

"I've been involved in teams before where people try and say 'Oh, it's just another game' - absolute rubbish. It's a semi-final. It's different.

"We know there's going to be a lift in intensity for both teams, but we also know the challenges ahead.

"We've had some really good areas of our performance in both games [against Ealing] that have probably grown throughout the season.

"It's the learnings to what we didn't quite get right in the most recent fixture we need to address."