LES Cusworth described Worcester's narrow 35-32 victory over struggling Orrell as one of the worst performance in his two-and-a-half year reign.

The club's Director of Rugby called a hasty 40-minute meeting of the Sixways rugby management after seeing his side scrape through.

Worcester had led 35-15 with just five minutes to play, but three late tries from Orrell gave them a real fright.

Orrell would have won but for stand-off David Slemen striking the woodwork with two of the three late conversions.

But Cusworth denied his meeting with Geoff Cooke, Phil Maynard and Carl Douglas smacked of emergency measures.

"It wasn't a crisis meeting at all, I called the meeting with five minutes to go as I felt it necessary for the management to sort out how we're helping the players," said Cusworth.

"We have to look at ourselves first and how our week of training is structured.

"We've got to make sure the players have the opportunity to go out and play well, nobody goes out to play badly.

"But it was a poor performance and one of the worst in the two and a half years I've been here.

"It was error-strewn and we've got to play a lot better, it was unacceptable even though the lads are training really hard," said Cusworth.

"There's not much more you can say apart from rubbish.

"Some of the decision making was not good, yet three weeks ago we were playing some cracking rugby.

"I've been involved in rugby for 32 years now and the one thing I've learnt is that nobody gives you anything in this game.

"I'm disappointed for the players and the crowd, but we're all in this together and we've now got to go down to Exeter and make a statement."

Despite the win there were few positives to come out of the game even though it keeps Worcester on top of Division Two.

Rich Tomlinson's appearance on the bench for the inured Ben Harvey was his first in 14 months, while lock Steve Lloyd also made his first start for eight weeks following a back strain.

"My back's good now but it's difficult to get back in because the boys have been playing reasonably well," he said.

"It was good to get 15 minutes playing for the first team but it wasn't the best 15 minutes we've ever played.

"We had the game won by half-time and although they were never going to come back, they pushed us at the end. We went to sleep and although we were far enough in front to make changes they didn't work."