Worcester Warriors’ Matt Kvesic felt the side were "unlucky" as they suffered an early red card in a 22-19 defeat away to Bath on Saturday.

Scotland international Rory Sutherland was sent off just two minutes into the game following a head-on-head collision with Bath’s Will Stuart.

While Kvesic was largely pleased with how the team reacted, the early decision from the referee has left him confused.

He said: “Obviously losing someone in the first couple of minutes is a weird start to the game.

“The thing I find frustrating is how different it is, one week that’s not even a penalty.

“I remember last year, against wasps, Malakai Fekitoa ran straight into him (Ted Hill), split Ted’s head, nothing.

“It’s unlucky, it’s not a malicious tackle, he’s just got it a little bit wrong.

“He’s decided today that it was a red card but on another day, it’s probably play-on, or a yellow, or a penalty.

“I’ll let the referees decide on that sort of stuff or I’ll get told off.”

He added: “The fact is it was a red card and I felt we responded, on the whole, pretty well.

“That first half we let ourselves down with discipline, that was the main thing because actually I felt that on the pitch we were in control for large portions of it.”

Warriors scored three tries in the loss, with a 68th minute penalty from the boot of fly-half Orlando Bailey proving to be the deciding factor.

A man down for much of the game, Kvesic believed the spirit showed by Worcester deserved more.

He said: “There’s lots of positives, these are the games you want to win.

“We showed a lot of character to stay in the game.

“We don’t want to be plucky losers, we haven’t won at Bath for however long, and that’s a game that we should’ve and could’ve won.

“We’ll lick our wounds and go again.”

Kvesic also highlighted the impact of forward Kyle Hatherell.

“He’s been one of our standout performers. It probably helps that he’s absolutely massive.

“We probably lacked some physicality at the end of the season and he’s brought that in spades.”