Exiles take it on the chin

London Welsh head coach Lyn Jones admits the Exiles had only themselves to blame after slipping to a narrow defeat away to Worcester Warriors.

Searching for their fifth win of the season, Welsh were made to rue three missed penalties from flyhalf Gordon Ross as they went down 6-13, with Semisi Taulava scoring the Warriors try.

And with a home clash against London Wasps next on the agenda, Jones has urged his side to be more clinical.

He said: "As a coach, you are looking at several things, but the two main areas are your performance and the result.

"I thought our performance was strong and we looked dominant and we were very disappointed not to win.

"We had lots of territory, but unfortunately we didn't take our opportunities to score points when they were on offer.

"We kept Worcester in the right areas of the field, but fair play they scored a really good try - three quick errors from us and we were under our posts conceding seven points.

"We're not the finished article at the moment and we know that there is a long way to go in the season. Where we were in August, where we are now and where we'll be in March are three different things, but we're going in the right direction.

"We've got Wasps next week now and it is important that we recover, keep fresh and motivated and make sure we get our revenge."

Despite a scrappy display, Worcester head coach Richard Hill insisted the result was all-important as the Warriors continued their good recent home record.

He said: "A win's a win and that has made us all happy just before Christmas - it was a potential banana skin.

"London Welsh rested their first team over the last two weeks against Grenoble in the Amlin Challenge Cup and they were nice and fresh.

"We'd had two big games against Perpignan as we wanted to get to the final of the Amlin Cup, whereas Welsh weren't bothered about going through, so they targeted this game.

"Our players dug in again in poor conditions. Last year, we probably would have lost that game because we wouldn't have had the spirit, fight and belief to keep going and close them out.

"It was not our plan to kick as much as we did and we'll have to look at it because we're better than that. Perhaps our players got a little bit nervous and kept trying to put the ball up the other end of the pitch."