DIRECTOR of rugby Gary Gold felt Worcester Warriors were the architects of their own downfall in a 24-14 Aviva Premiership defeat at Northampton Saints.

The former South Africa assistant coach believes Warriors have to be “more clinical” in their “execution” after slipping to a second successive top-tier loss.

Gold said it was “a case of what might have been” for second-from-bottom Warriors, particularly after Josh Adams’ early try had given them a 7-0 lead.

And the Sixways boss admits Warriors must be “very hard” on themselves before next Sunday’s home crunch relegation clash against basement boys Bristol.

“It was definitely a case of what might have been,” said Gold. “You lose a game of rugby in one or two ways.

“You are either beaten by a better team or you create the problems yourself. I think we largely created the problems for ourselves.

“We weren’t able to execute well enough in the first half to relieve pressure and then we gave a penalty away which let them back in again.

“It’s frustrating and the second week in a row we’ve done that. We need to be more clinical in our execution and that’s part of the learning curve of this group.”

Gold continued: “You have to take your opportunities against good rugby teams and unfortunately we didn’t do that.

“We scored off a line-out in the first play and there were other opportunities for us. I think we will have to be very hard on ourselves.”

Warriors trailed 17-7 at the interval after Saints’ Mikey Haywood crashed over from the back of a scrum in the final play of the first half.

Gold said the decision by referee Craig Maxwell-Keys to award Saints the scrum was a “turning point” in the game.

“I thought the decision to give them a scrum was a turning point because that led to the scrum and from there they built up the pressure for the try,” said Gold.

“I am interested to understand how that law works. To have gone in three points down when I thought we hadn’t done some things well would have given us a better lift than having to turn around 10 points down.”

Gold also rued Warriors’ failure to turn their early second-half pressure into points after Ryan Mils missed the target with two seemingly-kickable penalties.

“It was similar to the situation the previous weekend (against Exeter Chiefs) because we left eight points out there then,” said Gold.

“It (kicking penalties) helps the scoreboard to tick over and gives the team confidence but sadly it wasn’t to be.

“We must allow for that and maybe in hindsight we probably should have had a go for the corner from the second penalty to give ourselves a chance to get on the scoreboard.

“If we had picked up six points from 17-7 down then we would have been in the fight. But I was happy with how the guys stayed in the fight and didn’t give up.”