Warriors boss Mike Ruddock promised supporters his side had the ‘resolve and desire’ to move away from the foot of the Guinness Premiership table after the disappointment of defeat at Leeds Carnegie.
Director of Rugby Ruddock was left hunting a first win of the season after a 26-21 loss despite a late rally at Headingley.
Ruddock admitted his players were ‘hurt’ by the result against the newly promoted northerners.
But he backed them to bounce back from the defeat and show their promise in the coming weeks – starting at Leicester Tigers next weekend.
“We’re disappointed with our start to the season, we expected to get a number of results by now and wins,” he said.
“Having said that, I’ve been involved in rugby for over 20 years and I have never seen a team concede the manner of tries we are at the moment without being outplayed or outmuscled.
“You have balls shooting out the back of rucks, interception tries and loose kicks. We are conceding some real bizarre type tries that are killing us.
“We wanted a better performance. There were glimpses of what we wanted to see, particularly towards the end.
“We’re down but there is resolve and desire to get our game right and build on some of the patches we are showing to get an 80-minute performance.”
Loki Crichton grabbed a debut try and Ryan Powell also scored in a thrilling final quarter as Warriors threatened to snatch victory.
But Ruddock admitted his players had left themselves too much to do and paid the price for not taking chances.
“First half we wanted to get control up front and outmuscle Leeds a little bit, but in fairness they stuck to their guns,” he said.
“We changed our game and carried a lot more second half. We got some good rewards for that but a couple of breakaway efforts by Leeds meant we were always chasing the table.
“It’s a tough one to take when the ball shot out the back of the ruck and they went from 70 yards out to score, we were just building momentum and our game.
“We out some good rugby towards the end but it was too little too late.”
Ruddock paid tribute to the second half replacements who orchestrated a fight-back.
However, the news over Chris Horsman was not so encouraging as the Wales prop was taken off just after the break in some discomfort to be replaced by Tevita Taumoepeau.
“Chris thinks he might have torn a bicep muscle, we will know more in a couple of days and that is a blow for us,” said Ruddock.
“He will be out for a while if that is what he has done which is a shame because he brought a lot of enthusiasm into the game this week.”
“The table doesn’t lie, but I thought we got some go forward in the second half and all the people who came on made an impact,” added Ruddock.
“I thought Loki was excellent playing at ten, Ryan Powell gave us some tempo and Gavin Quinnell and Aleki Lutui made contributions.
“We could have won it at the end with Thinus Delport, perhaps on another day we would have got that try. Those are the things that aren’t quite going for us at the moment.
“It’s early days and we are down the wrong end of the table, but we are confident we will pull through and get some results.”