HEAD coach Carl Hogg criticised his players for failing to get “the basics” right as Worcester Warriors suffered a dismal 24-15 defeat at Birmingham Moseley in pre-season.

Warriors were left red faced by the National One outfit who came out on top in a match blighted by torrential rain at Billesley Common.

Hogg said it was an “atrocious night” to play rugby, but insisted the conditions did not excuse the way his side performed as they conceded three converted tries against the part-timers.

“We need to look at the basics, like our ball retention,” he said.

“Credit to Moseley as they were able to hold high field position on the back of our errors whether that’s at the breakdown or ill-discipline and that gave them in a foothold in the game.

“It was an atrocious night but we didn’t adapt to the conditions.

“It is a lesson for some of the young fellas out there.

“It’s not always put on a platter, so you have got to adapt to the opposition and the referee.”

Warriors featured experienced players including Peter Stringer, GJ van Velze and Matt Cox alongside youngsters Will Butler, Huw Taylor and Tom Howe.

“It was the second pre-season friendly where we have mixed the teams around a bit and we wanted to try to play our game out there,” Hogg continued.

“We were still trying to play some rugby, especially in that first-half when we had a large wind advantage and credit to Moseley in the second-half as we let them in with ill-discipline and turnovers and they used the conditions.

“Sometimes the game is dictated by doing the basics very well and we weren’t accurate enough.

“We weren’t accurate around the breakdown and some of our execution.

“We put ourselves under pressure so we need to adapt better to the conditions.”

With two divisions separating the two teams, Warriors were expected to run riot as they did in a 55-21 win over Championship side Hartpury last weekend.

But after Sam Olver landed an early drop goal, they found themselves under pressure and behind on the scoreboard.

Following a powerful scrum against the head, Chris Brightwell ripped the ball from Stringer’s hands as Mose closed in on the try-line before Buster Lawrence crossed the whitewash. James Dixon added the extras.

Warriors responded on 18 minutes as a superb kick from Olver and strong work from the resultant lineout saw them gain further ground. Taylor was then on hand to burrow over near the posts leaving a simple conversion for Olver to make it 10-7.

This was how it stayed until half-time although Warriors’ dysfunctional set-piece was giving Mose the upper-hand.

Both sides were also down to 14 men heading into the second period as Matti Williams and Joe Wrafter saw yellow following a bust-up.

Worcester made five changes in a bid to turn the tide, but Mose quickly regained the lead courtesy of a Dixon penalty.

The hosts were camped out in Warriors’ half and they extended their advantage on 53 minutes when Ciaran Moore crashed over from close range, with Dixon converting.

Ten minutes later, Worcester’s evening got even worse as Sam Hollingsworth broke through, slipping off Ben Howard’s tackle before offloading to Mark Harrison to finish. Hollingsworth converted to put Mose 24-10 in front.

Warriors continued to battle, but could only score a consolation try as Howard gathered a kick from Tom Heathcote and touched down.