WORCESTER Warriors chief Dean Ryan says his players must be “more clinical” after spurning several try-scoring opportunities in their 31-17 defeat at Leicester Tigers.

Warriors led 10-7 and 17-14 against the beaten European Champions Cup semi-finalists and remained in the contest until 16 minutes from time when Tigers grabbed a fourth try.

Fly-half Tom Heathcote rattled a post with a penalty as Warriors created opportunities without failing to score a point in a hard-fought second period.

There was a much better level of intensity from Warriors and Ryan believes, with more composure, his troops could have left Welford Road with a famous Aviva Premiership success.

Ryan said: “It was a great performance. We were in the contest and a bit frustrated because we missed three or four chances.

“We had two forward-pass decisions go against us that were flat at best and would have been tries.

“You can’t come to Welford Road and miss opportunities, we know that. We probably created six or seven chances.

“We missed one when Lamby (Ryan Lamb) came on at the end and missed two, which we thought were decent passes. One put Val (Rapava Ruskin) through under the sticks but was pulled back.

“You have to take everything on offer. You need everything to be going over and every chance to be taken to win at a place like this. If we are honest, we have to be more clinical. There was enough for us to do some damage but we just didn’t nail them.”

Will Evans’ converted try from a driven line-out opened up a 28-17 lead for Tigers and took the contest beyond Warriors’ reach.

But Ryan was frustrated with referee Greg Garner’s decision which had penalised Warriors at their own scrum in the lead-up to Evans’ crucial score.

“We had a pretty competitive scrum and then suddenly it all changed with a crucial decision,” said Ryan.

“We drove them forward and he (Garner) reset the scrum.

“They then drove us up on the left, he gave them a penalty and they scored the try from it. You need a 10-point buffer to come to a place like this to survive those sort of decisions.”

After thumping defeats to Exeter Chiefs and Wasps in their previous two outings, Warriors were much more competitive and silenced the passionate home crowd in the early stages.

“We have got a lot to learn and had to come to terms with playing without something hanging on each game,” said Ryan.

“We had got it wrong in the last two matches but we didn’t get it wrong here.

“I am really proud of the boys. It’s new territory for us. We spoke a lot about it during the week and I was pretty pleased with how it looked on the field.

“We turned up properly against a really good Leicester side and there is a little bit of frustration we didn’t take more on offer.”