DIRECTOR of rugby Gary Gold could not hide his disappointment after Worcester Warriors went down 18-14 to 14-man Sale Sharks at Sixways.

Warriors spent more than half an hour with an extra man as Faf de Klerk and Byron McGuigan had spells in the sin-bin before the latter received a second yellow card with 13 minutes remaining.

But Gold admitted poor decision-making and a failure to win the collision cost them a third successive Aviva Premiership win as Worcester were unable to make numerical advantage count.

“We have been able to lay a platform for ourselves in weeks gone by, but we didn’t do that which was very disappointing,” Gold said.

“By in large we didn’t win the collisions across the park and added to that we made some pretty poor decisions when we did have the ball.

“That led us to turning the ball over and giving a team with a very powerful backline too much ball.

“We got ourselves into trouble in the first half of the scoreboard because of our errors.

“It is disappointing when your errors allow a team to get into a game as opposed to anything else.”

Asked why failed Warriors failed to make the right decisions, Gold replied: “It’s not necessarily that easy to put your finger on but there are certainly no excuses.

“We made good decisions in the last couple of games and even against Quins as well which led us to be able to create opportunities for ourselves to score tries which we have done in abundance.

“That was not the case (last night).”

Sale opened up an 8-0 lead in the first 15 minutes as AJ MacGinty landed a penalty and Rohan Janse van Rensburg went over in the corner.

Warriors levelled the scores with a three-pointer from Chris Pennell and a Josh Adams try as McGuigan saw yellow.

MacGinty kicked Sale 11-8 ahead at the break before Pennell split the posts after de Klerk replaced McGuigan in the sin-bin.

McGuigan was then sent off for a tip-tackle on Heem and Pennell converted his third penalty to edge Warriors 14-11 in front.

But Worcester failed to hang on to their lead as Mark Jennings touch down in the final 10 minutes and MacGinty added the extras.

Gold added: “I think you have got to give Sale credit.

“They were defensively very good as you could see they were shooting off the line quite quickly and caught behind the advantage line on the odd occasion.

“But they were very physical in the tackle.”

Sale’s attack and skills coach Paul Deacon said he was “relieved” and “very pleased” to come away with a victory.

“We were very resilient and had to be as we spent 34 minutes with 14 men away from home,” he said.

“We should not be winning games like that, so the players to dig in and showed character right through the game, especially in that second half when we defended for 35 minutes of the 40.”

On McGuigan’s tackle on Heem, Deacon added: “It was the right decision.

“He had to go and if it wasn’t his second yellow it was a straight red. It put the lads under the pump with 14 minutes left on the clock.

“He knows he has put the team under pressure, but that’s sport and things happen like that.

“Byron is not a malicious bloke – he is a really down to earth, nice fella and would not have meant any harm to anyone.”