Worcester Warriors boss Mike Ruddock praised his team’s effort but admitted a ‘mad ten minutes’ and lack of consistency had cost his side in a 30-23 defeat against Harlequins.
Director of Rugby Ruddock saw his side leak four first half tries – including three in ten minutes – to always chase the televised clash.
Matthew Jones and Miles Benjamin crossed for Warriors but Ruddock admitted his side needed to cut out the errors to avoid playing catch up.
“The boys have put in a lot of effort but the difference between us and a top of the team outfit is that we have been shooting ourselves in the foot,” he said.
“We had a great start with a drop goal and our patterns looked good and then from the kick off we give away points and then from the restart we do it again.
“To be as close as it was at the end after that mad ten minutes showed the effort from my players but the accuracy and ability to do the right things consistently well for the 80 minutes is obviously a concern for us.
“The only way we are going to battle through that is to learn from our mistakes, it’s an old cliché but we made plenty of those.
“We showed plenty of effort and could have bottled it after Quins scored a number of tries in the first half, we could have fallen apart but we didn’t do that, we battled on and got back in the game.
“At half-time I told them to start from 0-0 and forget the scoreboard. We went out and scored the first try, we looked good again and then suddenly made an error or two to let them back in.
“Quins are a really good team and you have got to look at our defence, we allowed them to offload and break the first tackle. That is a concern and we can’t keep doing that, but they are clinical and when we gave them a sniff they took it.
“I know my guys are working hard, as coaches we have got to take accountability and so we will be working through it.
“There is a great desire to do well and we showed that by battling back the way we did to keep the score line respectable after a crazy ten minutes in the first half.”