Mike Ruddock praised the character of his young guns as they produced a brave rearguard in the 32-17 defeat to Scarlets in the LV= Cup.
Ruddock rang the changes for the cup game at Parc y Scarlets with 11 in total from the side that had secured a bonus point win over Newcastle Falcons and 15 Academy graduates in the 23-man squad and nine in the starting line-up.
That included 17-year-old Matt Kvesic who became the youngest Warrior in the professional era when he came on in the 66th minute, 204 days younger than Andrew Higgins when he made his debut against Manchester in September 1999.
Scarlets powered into a 32-3 lead after 50 minutes, but Warriors refused to let their heads drop and tries from Matt Cox and Graham Kitchener saw them impress in the final 30 minutes.
Ruddock admitted he had some harsh words for his team at the interval, however he was pleased with the way they did not let their heads drop and played with pride until the final whistle.
“We won the second half but the first half we didn’t win by a country mile – Scarlets won that and thoroughly deserved the win,” he said.
“They were the better side, but we battled back after a difficult first half and played much better in the second half.
“I was very impressed with Scarlets against Harlequins and all the youngsters that came in.
“We put a lot of youngsters in ourselves and we were hoping to replicate what Scarlets did. But we didn’t gel as well as we hoped. We looked a little bit inexperienced around the 8, 9 and 10 area. In the first half we made some errors in that area.
“Our defensive line in the first half wasn’t great, we didn’t fold around the rucks quickly and that left us short out wide.
“That was something I had warned the team about all week. From as long as I can remember, it has always been a strength of the Scarlets to move the ball into the open spaces and too ask questions of the defence.
“If we didn’t match that desire to get around the ruck and get our line in place to actually defend then we would come unstuck – that is what happened.
“But it’s a learning curve for some of these guys and younger lads, there were some positives and the second half was one of those. We outscored them and came back from a difficult situation.
He added: “We got people like Olivier Sourgens back on the field, as he has been out quite a while with a knee injury, which was a positive.
“We also got young Matt Kvesic on the field at 17 years of age. He is a fantastic prospect and I don’t want to build him up too much, but he certainly didn’t look out of place out there.
“I said to him after the game ‘what do you think?’ and he told me it was a little bit different to schoolboy rugby. I told him that is the way it is supposed to be.”
Ruddock also had words of encouragement for scrum half Ollie Frost who endured a difficult full debut for the club as Scarlets impressed in the opening 40 minutes
“You can go back and look at all manner of players who very often on their first start make a few errors,” he added.
“They learn from it and come back from it. Ollie made a few errors, but he is a good kid with a lot of character.
“He has a great desire to go on and be a great professional and he will look at the video, we will take him through a few things and he will get things right next time he plays.”