WORCESTER Warriors skipper Donncha O’Callaghan revealed it was “special” to make his 50th appearance for the club as he came off the bench against Connacht in the European Challenge Cup.

The Ireland legend, who has 98 Test caps to his name, returned to his homeland and received a massive welcome as he entered the fray.

He wasn’t the only Warrior to reach 50 appearances for the club in the match with captain for the day GJ van Velze also reaching the milestone – in which all of his have been starts.

And O’Callaghan said: “It was a special moment for me to run out for my 50th appearance and to make it back in Ireland was even more special.

“It’s mad when you go away and see the support and it makes you massively proud of being Irish.

“It’s also pretty cool that both GJ and I reached the 50-game milestone in the same match. It’s just a shame we couldn’t come away with the win.”

Both sides contended with strong winds in the match, especially Warriors in the first period, as they went in 8-0 behind at the break.

But they bounced back through a Josh Adams try in the second period before a fortunate drop of the ball allowed Matt Healy to run in for Connacht who ended up edging the contest 15-8 in Galway.

And O’Callaghan explained: “In the end I’m disappointed with the result. We are playing well at the moment.

“There’s a good environment here and the attitude for work and desire from the guys is great. We just need the rub of the green sometimes.”

The experienced second row revealed his joy at working with Warriors’ upcoming players and paid tribute to young stars Jack Singleton, Josh Adams and Will Spencer.

He continued: “I always want to play but we have some really good talent and we have to bring them through.

“The younger guys are sponges. They want to do well and want to get better.

"Many other teams have lots of foreign talent around them so we’re asking a lot of our younger guys like Jack, Josh and Will.

"They haven’t had to only learn their trade but they’ve had to come in at the top end straight away which is tough.

“But you’ll get the maturity of them a lot sooner so those three in particular are incredible and they probably don’t get the credit they deserve because of the position of the team.

“I’d like to see some of the other guys push on for national honours and see how well they do.”

Warriors travel to Harlequins on Saturday and O’Callaghan insists they must take some of the momentum they’ve picked up in Europe and transfer it into the league.

He added: “It was a good performance and result against Brive and there were lots of good elements on Saturday in some rough conditions.

“Now we’ll get back and focus on the trip to the Stoop where we’ll have to continue some of this good work and momentum.”