Head Coach Richard Hill admitted his Warriors had paid the price for a poor ‘error strewn’ display as they suffered a 23-21 defeat at the hands of Cornish Pirates in the RFU Championship at Sixways Stadium.
The league leaders conceded two soft tries as a ragged opening 40 minutes saw Warriors trail 14-0 at the break.
Worcester hit back to take a slender lead but a late penalty from Rob Cook secured the points for Pirates and left Hill to admit his team exactly what they deserved from the home clash under lights.
“The Pirates were really up for it, as every team is that comes here, and played out of their skins. But we were very poor,” said Hill.
“Before the game the players were in a good frame of mind, we certainly hadn’t underestimated them, but it was an error-strewn first half.
“We couldn’t get anything right, we were dropping off tackles and they scored two relatively soft tries. We don’t expect to let in tries like that to go 14-0 behind. It could have been even worse.
“From knocking on to giving penalties away, there were several occasions in the first half when we were five metres from their line and they won the ball off us.
“Andy Goode’s kicking was not accurate as it had been last week against Bedford, eight out of eight last week but he missed them tonight.
“We leaked a lot around the ten channel, their blindside wing made a lot of inroads and we will have to look at that. Between the ten and the back row there were holes. But, uncharacteristically, there were holes all over the place really. We lost it in the first half because at 14-0 it was a long way back.”
Hill also demanded his team look at their poor starts as they fell behind to an early try and were forced to play catch up for almost the entire 80 minutes on home soil.
“We don’t start well for some reason – tonight was even worse and it is difficult to explain,” he added.
“The dressing room beforehand had a good feeling, the intensity was there but we came out and the errors were clear. There wasn’t a lot tonight that you could say was even good.
“It was only in the second half, when we injected some players, that we picked up a little bit. But it typified our performance that someone gave a penalty away at the end to lose the match.
“We had worked so hard, in a game that we hadn’t played well in, to come back and be in then lead 21-20 with less than five minutes to go. We just had to hold out and it was a bad error to give away the penalty to lose the game.
“I have got no complaints with the referee because we were poor. I saw the referee after the game and thanked him,” added Hill.
“He was under pressure with the home crowd trying to get some decisions our way. But we can’t blame him; we were just not good tonight.
“It was an intense game from the Pirates point of view and they would be delighted with it. But we were error-strewn.”