DEAN Ryan admitted his side “can’t buy a win at the moment” as Warriors’ hunt for a first Aviva Premiership victory of the season goes on.

Worcester are now winless in five outings and suffered a disappointing defeat to Newcastle Falcons at Sixways on Saturday.

Discontent is growing among the fan base and the break from league rugby as the Amlin Challenge Cup takes over can’t come quickly enough for beleaguered Warriors.

Against Falcons, Worcester battled their way back after a disastrous start and should have forced home their advantage when opting for a scrum from a penalty under the visitors’ posts in the dying minutes of the game.

However, as has been symptomatic of their struggles this term, Warriors were unable to exert sufficient control of their own set-piece and referee Martin Fox’s interpretation of the scrums left many people, including Ryan, scratching their heads.

Ryan said: “We can’t buy a win at the moment. In any other scenario, the final scrum was a situation we should have won the game from.

“We have got to change, there is a real danger that we concentrate on that last five minutes but the challenge here is to be competitive regularly.

“If we get better at the things we can control, then we get a better chance of trying to win games. I know the history of this place and the final-minute decisions that seem to accumulate, there were a lot of things in the first 79 we could have done better to give us a better chance of winning.

“We’ve got to work our way through and work at being more competitive and more resilient week in, week out.

“The Newcastle side are resilient and they’re clear on their agenda. They deserve credit for sitting that last 20 or 30 minutes out.

“When you look at possession stats and field position, we probably should have won.”

Ryan added: “I think we started badly and if we can’t manage collision and work-rate then we end up back over our line. That’s the reality.

“We did that in the second-half, we were under control defensively — that’s where we are, we haven’t got a group that is confident week in, week out in getting all of the pieces right.

“We kicked a little too much because we ran a little bit too much last week. We have got to try and adapt and get those things better.”