WORCESTER Warriors Under 18s set out on a path trodden by Ted Hill and Ollie Lawrence in recent years on Saturday.

They launch their Premiership Under 18s Academy League campaign against Yorkshire Carnegie at Emerald Headingley (10.30am).

Hill won his first England cap against Japan last month and Lawrence trained with Eddie Jones’ squad in May.

“It’s good for their development. They have to play six games in a short amount of time so there’s not a huge amount of time for them to recover,” said academy coach Gordon Ross.

“We want them to try to get better and better every week. We want to challenge the players to be the best in their age group in their positions.

“It’s a fantastic opportunity for them to play on a Premiership ground for our home games, they will go away and play at Newcastle and this week we are at Headingley which is an international stadium.

“Hopefully we can be very competitive, the guys can learn and it will put them in good stead for moving into senior rugby.

“As a coaching group we challenge ourselves to make sure that when the players leave the under 18s they are prepared for senior rugby and these games are an opportunity to do that.

“Earlier in the season the boys were looking at clips of Ollie’s tries pre-season and his performance out at Stade Francais.

“So they do see that and they know that if they do play well opportunities will open up for them.”

Full-back Noah Heward has played in the Premiership Shield for Cavaliers but the Solihull School player misses Saturday due to a knee injury.

“We are missing quite a few through injury. They have played 15 to 18 games this term for their schools and it’s all added up,” said Ross.

“Most of the players have been involved here this term but there are three or four I have never met before who will be involved.

“But we have a good group of guys and hopefully that will be enough to get us through.”

Warriors: Morgan (Bromsgrove School); Matthews (RGS Worcester), Wells (Stourport HS), Atkinson (Bromsgrove School), O’Hanlon (Solihull School); Smith (Warwick School), Mitcham (Stourport HS); Holsey (Solihull School), Lilly (Stourport HS), Ballinger (Stourport HS), Goodwin (Hartpury College), Forsythe (Warwick School), Thomas (Oldbury Wells), Higgins (Idsall), Monks (Stourport High). Replacements: Turner (Bromsgrove School), Royston (Hartpury College), Constantine (Hartpury College), McDougall (Solihull School), Guy (Bromsgrove School), Olley (Bromsgrove School), Maddox (Bromsgrove School).