Director of Rugby Mike Ruddock insisted his Worcester Warriors retained ‘tons of spirit and desire’ to turn the season around after defeat to London Irish on home soil.
Worcester suffered a 23-13 defeat to the play-off chasing Exiles and must now focus on London Wasps in seven days time in the hunt for a big victory.
Ruddock admits his team now has three huge Guinness Premiership battles to prepare for – including the trip to Leeds Carnegie.
But he is adamant that the mood inside the Warriors camp remains determined and focused on the task in hand.
“We put a good effort in, we could have got something from the game but we weren’t quite good enough to get something from the game,” said Ruddock.
“London Irish are a good team, I watched them play Sale and they tore them to pieces. The tackle law interpretation has changed and what you are seeing now is quick recycling of the ball and the advantage with the attacking team – that really does suit a team like London Irish.
“We are not dispirited. We are disappointed but are already talking about London Wasps.
“The Leeds game is big, but we can’t think about that just yet. We have to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down.
“We have talked about four battles that we have got ahead of us, we have lost the first one so we must regroup and try and win the second. That is all we can do.”
Ruddock also paid tribute to the Sixways faithful who again turned up the volume in a bid to inspire Warriors to victory.
He added: “The fans were just fantastic today, the atmosphere and crowd was immense. I thought they lifted the players and they tried their best.
“If we weren’t a united and proud team, with the amount of ball London Irish had they could have ripped us apart.
“There is tons of spirit and tons of desire to do well. We don’t want to let the fans down and every time we put the jersey on we go out there determined to do our best. That is all I can ask of my players.
“We are giving 100 percent but what we are not quite good enough at, throughout the course of 80 minutes, is nailing down each and every opportunity that comes our way. That is not through lack of desire and we must keep working hard.”