Worcester Warriors win Championship title in first season back from extinction

Worcester Warriors completed one of English rugby’s most extraordinary resurrections by beating Bedford 27-14 at Goldington Road on Sunday to claim the Championship title in their first season back as a professional club.

The Warriors, who folded in September 2022 and were only readmitted to the Championship by the RFU in April 2025 — pending settlement of all rugby debts — built their title-winning squad from scratch with fewer than four months before the season began. Captain Matt Kvesic, a former England flanker who returned to the club after spells at Gloucester and Exeter, was visibly emotional after the final whistle.

“I am just really proud of the group, really proud of the boys,” said Kvesic. “I think the whole story about the uniqueness of what’s happened here, the way we have come back together — I am probably wrong but I don’t think any team has done this: come back to professional rugby and won the league the way we have.”

Worcester trailed at half-time against the wind and on the wrong side of Goldington Road’s famous slope, but head coach Matt Everard’s side dominated the second period. Kvesic credited the half-backs for game management and singled out the forwards’ physicality and the impact of the replacements as decisive.

“Against the wind, up the hill, the sun in our eyes — the way we managed that game in the second half, I thought the forwards’ physicality was outstanding, and the bench had a massive impact,” he said.

The 37-year-old Billy Twelvetrees, who came out of retirement to join the project, was named Player of the Match — a performance Kvesic described as emblematic of the squad’s character. Head coach Everard had identified Twelvetrees and Kvesic as the experienced figures needed to bind together a hastily assembled group of players.

The path to the title was far from straightforward. Worcester finished fourth in the regular season, and a run of one win in five games — including a 64-28 defeat to Coventry — left their play-off prospects in doubt. They recovered to beat Chinnor 35-29 in the quarter-finals before eliminating Ealing, who had been unbeaten throughout the regular season, with a last-second Jake Garside try in the semi-finals.

Both knockout ties were played away from home, a circumstance Kvesic said the squad embraced rather than feared.

“As the season showed, there were ups and downs along the way and we have learnt and got better as a group,” he said. “We made it hard for ourselves with an extra game, having to play the semi and final away. But we kind of relished that challenge.”

What a year it’s been, Kvesic acknowledged — one that began with uncertainty over whether the club would even exist and ended with silverware.