DIRECTOR of rugby Gary Gold believes his players will “man up” for the task of tackling reigning Aviva Premiership champions Exeter Chiefs at Sixways on Friday (7.45pm).

Worcester Warriors have yet to pick up a point this term following a 35-8 loss at Newcastle Falcons and a 24-10 defeat Wasps last Sunday.

And Gold is anticipating another tough outing against a Chiefs side with a “huge amount of confidence”.

Exeter clinched the league title for the first time last season - capping off a remarkable journey since being promoted from the Championship seven years ago.

During that time Warriors have suffered 11 straight defeats to Chiefs. Their last win against the Devon side came in 2004 when they met in National One.

Gold said: “Exeter are one of the amazing stories of world rugby, not only the Premiership.

“They have gradually improved over the years and there is no reason at all to say they are not going to improve even more this year.

“They play a brand of rugby that asks a lot of questions of you as they have got great playmakers through the spine of their team.

“They will have a huge amount of confidence, so we understand what a massive task it is going to be for us.

“But that’s the Premiership for you and we will man up for it.

“We have got a plan of what we want to do and when we get it right I think we look pretty good.

“At this moment in time we have a couple of choices.

“We can either look at the table and panic or be very clear on what our process is and look at how we can improve.”

Although Worcester pushed Wasps all the way, Gold reckoned it was a missed opportunity for his side who conceded two late tries after drawing level at 10-10.

Warriors’ chief insisted they needed to cut down on making “elementary errors” to stand a chance of causing Exeter problems.

“For 65 minutes (against Wasps) we were well in the game,” Gold said.

“We had a kick to take the lead to go 13-10 ahead, so signs were very positive.

“But we made a handful of unforced errors in the last 10 minutes and unfortunately that cost us.

“They scored from two lost lineouts and those are elementary errors.

“If we don’t hand teams of Wasps’ quality that kind of possession then we are in with a chance of winning. In the end we didn’t even get a bonus point.

“A lot of those errors are avoidable by the plan being slightly different.

“Just to say to a player ‘Don’t drop the ball or don’t make a mistake’ is ridiculous.

“Players know that and they take responsibility, so I don’t think that’s something we are making too much of a big deal about.

“We need to continue to back these players and believe that if we harden ourselves in terms of sticking together and being a group then we will be OK.”