WORCESTER Warriors director of rugby John Brain blamed his side's 36-18 Boxing Day defeat against Bath on a lack of discipline.

Warriors lost their unbeaten home record after giving away countless penalties and ending up on the wrong end of a 36-18 scoreline.

"The guys are very disappointed and so they should be because we let ourselves down," said Brain.

"Our lack of discipline was a key factor in the game.

"I don't know what the penalty count was, but certainly that was a major issue for us.

"The amount of penalties that we gave away, where we gave them away and the time we gave them away.

"Obviously you have to go through the video and look at each of those decisions and see whether the ref got it right or whether he got it wrong."

Despite referee Sean Davey's numerous interventions, Brain was more annoyed with the performance of his players -- especially their inability to capitalise when Bath prop Duncan Bell was sent to the sin-bin.

"The fact is we've been penalised a lot at a crucial period of the game," said Brain. "They had Duncan Bell off the pitch and we lost that 10-minute spell 6-5.

"We came straight out at the start of the second-half and gave away two penalties. I mentioned the penalty count at half-time and it did annoy me."

Worcester were without captain Pat Sanderson for the game after the England flanker hurt his back in last week's European Challenge Cup tie at Connacht.

But Brain refused to use his absence as an excuse for the poor performance.

He said: "Pat has got a back problem. I would expect him to miss the next couple of games. You always miss him, particularly his leadership, but I don't think his absence was a factor.

"We did some decent things with the ball when we had it. When we got some pace and a bit of intensity into the game we did some decent things.

"I think Pat's influence would have helped us. But I don't think his absence was a key factor.

"The key factor in us losing was our lack of discipline."