BOSS Dean Ryan was in no mood to talk about Worcester Warriors’ rousing second-half fightback against high-flying Wasps at Sixways.

The Warriors chief tore into his players after an “unacceptable” opening 40 minutes had handed Wasps the match.

Warriors trailed 33-15 at half-time before eventually crashing to a 54-35 defeat in Saturday’s breath-taking Aviva Premiership Midlands derby.

“There’s no point talking about fightbacks when you’ve lost the game,” said Ryan.

“They are irrelevant. There isn’t any credit fighting back when the game has been lost.”

Ryan felt Warriors had been dragged into a running battle against a confident Wasps side with the ability to tear opposition defences apart.

“I thought the first 40 minutes was unacceptable,” said Ryan.

“We didn’t apply ourselves. We thought we would go out and play against one of the best sides and throw the ball about and we got picked off and it was just unacceptable.

“We saw in the second half what we were capable of but I am not even going to gloss over it because the contest was over.

“I don’t want to be involved in any end-of-season jamborees.

“I think the integrity of the league and the integrity of this club is crucial.

“We have a responsibility to finish in the right way and the first 40 minutes was nowhere near it.

“We had a responsibility to the whole league to turn up to a league game at home and get the intensity right for the first 40 minutes but we didn’t.”

With South African Wynand Olivier out injured, Ryan switched Bryce Heem into the centre and played Tom Biggs on the wing.

But Heem looked all at sea in the first half. Andy Symons was brought on at centre at the start of the second half with Biggs replaced and Heem reverting back to the wing.

“We wanted to have a look at Bryce at 13 and it didn’t look comfortable so we changed it,” said Ryan.

“It wasn’t a reflection of what had gone on in the first half because what had gone on had been a collective responsibility.

“We also knew by bringing on Andy we could be more direct and that would help settle some of the problems.

“Andy did well and he did what we wanted him to do and that was to be really direct.

“That’s exactly what we wanted the team to do in the first place but we didn’t do it.

“We know we can play some decent rugby and be competitive and I don’t understand why we weren’t competitive in the first 40 minutes.”