DEAN Ryan admitted his Warriors side were out-classed by a slick Harlequins outfit, but was full of praise for his players’ never-say-die attitude.

Quins, the Aviva Premiership champions of two seasons ago, blew Worcester away with a scintillating display of power and precision to rack up a bonus-point victory.

Director or rugby Ryan looked on powerless to prevent the black, blue, maroon and green tide washing over his side, but has called for the same levels of effort and desire to be replicated when Warriors go to Wasps this weekend.

“When you get individuals going to the edge of exhaustion and doing everything they can within their control, that isn’t a group that lacks motivation,” said Ryan.

“This group is well motivated, I’m enjoying coaching them and any bloke that goes to the wall like that — times 20 of them — I’m pretty happy to defend and work with again next week.

“Against Wasps, we can try and close the gap and see what happens. We’ve got to wipe our wounds and move on to the next game.”

Warriors showed commendable fighting spirit to keep Quins in check for the opening quarter of the game, despite having hardly any possession of the ball. However, such a defensive commitment will always be unsustainable and the visitors eventually broke through and the floodgates opened.

Ryan added: “Sometimes you have to accept you’re second best. We were well beaten and within 50 minutes.

“I thought Quins were excellent for 40 or 50 minutes and we didn’t have an answer to their off-load game.

“In the second-half, we showed a lot of courage and worked really hard to try and stay in that game but we couldn’t.

“I think the crowd have a lot to shout about when they see their home team throw themselves to the point of exhaustion.

“If my team represent me in a way that they give me everything they’ve got, then I’ll shout all day for them and I thought they were great at that.”