DIRECTOR of rugby Dean Ryan was pleased with Warriors’ improved showing but frustrated they failed to flourish after racing into a 12-0 lead.

“We are still not playing as well as I would like, but we have to get the job done and a bonus-point win at Doncaster, with the rain coming in, is probably as much as we can expect.

“I am pleased to keep winning and I am pleased that people keep improving. I thought the forwards were better and we were smarter around the use of our scrum and the driving line-out.

“We are a little bit frustrated that we can’t get any momentum in games.

“It’s a different challenge this season because you don’t have the same momentum coming back at you. Everything has to be self-created and we’re still learning that.

“Our execution wasn’t as accurate as we would have wanted it but it wasn’t necessarily the day to push all the buttons.

“There’s a little bit of self-doubt in us and, at times, we revert back to our powerful scrum. That’s understandable but it’s been difficult so far to get the ascendency transferred into points.”

He added: “When we have such a good start I would expect it to kick-on and we didn’t get that. We clearly have a strong scrum and a decent driving line-out and we are struggling to know how to convert it into points at this level.”

Former Warriors head coach, Clive Griffiths, said the match had been a non-event for his Doncaster Knights, who crashed to a rare defeat at Castle Park.

“Worcester will say that’s the best they have played and I can safely say that’s the worst we have played,” said Griffiths, who is Doncaster’s director of rugby.

“Worcester had the lion’s share of the decisions early on and we were on the back-foot. But that isn’t the reason we lost the game.

“Our execution was poor. We got back into the game a couple of times but we failed to deal with a kick-off – and that killed us.

“We knew the number 10 for Worcester puts great hang-time on his kicks and we had worked on that aspect during the week. We put the tallest guy on the field to deal with it but he missed the ball completely – and they gathered the restart to score and that ended the game as a contest.

“I feel we have let a lot of people down. To us, it was a non-event. We did not test Worcester enough. This was always going to be a tough match for us and we got nothing out of it.

“Worcester scored three good tries and one, a catch-and-drive, which the boys didn’t reckon was over but the touch judge gave it.”

He added: “I felt the scrum was a lottery and it’s bad for the game but I have no grumbles about the defeat. It’s a long time since we lost at home and we will come back from this.

“Worcester are very capable and have some very strong players out wide. They have got a strong scrum and the times the scrum popped up, it killed us. I am down but I am not out.”