DIRECTOR of rugby Alan Solomons admits Worcester Warriors paid the price for their failure to look after the ball in their 30-15 defeat at Wasps.

Warriors conceded numerous turnovers in the Aviva Premiership clash and the hosts’ “X-factor players” took full advantage at the Ricoh Arena.

Christian Wade struck twice either side of Joe Launchbury’s close-range score to give Wasps a 23-3 half-time advantage.

Josh Bassett notched his side’s fourth try before Dean Hammond and Josh Adams touched down in the closing minutes for Warriors.

And Solomons was keen to praise Wasps who kept Worcester at bay when they were down to 14 men as Jack Willis saw yellow shortly after the break before Jimmy Gopperth took his place in the sin-bin.

“It was (disappointing) but the first thing one has got to do is give credit to Wasps,” Solomons said.

“I thought they played really well on the day.

“The game turned in that 10-minute period just before half-time when they got the two tries and a penalty, scoring 15 points, which was massive.

“What was positive from our perspective was that the boys stuck to their task right throughout that second half and we were rewarded in that last five or so minutes with two tries.”

However, Solomons admitted mistakes cost his team from returning home with any precious points in their fight for survival.

“We spoke about it before (the game) – if you turnover the ball against a quality team like Wasps you are going to pay a price for it,” Solomons said.

“Wasps have got a lot of X-factor players who are very dangerous with that kind of ball.

“Our performance wasn’t as good as last week (against Newcastle Falcons), there is no question about that.

“But I feel that Wasps really punished us for not looking after the ball well enough.”

Wade opened the scoring on 10 minutes with a try in the corner before Gopperth landed a penalty mid-way through the first half.

Dorian Jones cut back the deficit with a three-pointer on 26 minutes, but a converted try from Launchbury, a second Wade score and a Goppeth penalty saw Wasps open up a 20-point lead at the interval.

Despite losing Willis and then Gopperth to the sin-bin, Bassett intercepted a pass from Jamie Shillcock to secure the bonus point.

Althought Wasps director of rugby Dai Young was disappointed to see Hammond and Adams cross in the last few minutes he was pleased with his side’s “professional” performance.

“We had two bouts of defending with 14 men which was not easy, but we were pretty controlled for most the game,” Young said.

“We were pretty professional in the way we played the game and I thought we learnt from the London Irish game as Worcester play very similar to them.

“They don’t play too much rugby in their own half and kicked the ball back to you.

"There were lots of good things from us but there were things which were frustrating, like the last five minutes."