WORCESTER Warriors director of rugby Dean Ryan spoke of his frustration after their 29-20 Aviva Premiership defeat against Leicester Tigers at Sixways.

Warriors led 17-0 early on but a last-gasp try from Lachlan McCaffrey, converted by Owen Williams, gave Tigers a nine-point triumph, which denied Worcester a losing bonus point.

Warriors finished with just 13 men on the pitch.

Donncha O’Callaghan was dismissed early in the second-half for a second yellow card, while Gareth Milasinovich and Matt Cox were also dispatched to the sin-bin by referee Wayne Barnes.

Ryan said: “We are frustrated we don’t convert that to at least one point in the end but, more importantly, it was a game we thought we could win.

“I thought the first yellow card for Donncha dug a hole for Wayne Barnes and then he ended up with a red card for two technical offences.

“I think the first one he’s talking about is leaning into a ruck with a head.

“That’s what we heard on the mic. That’s what he says and there isn’t any image of that and we can’t see that.

“You end up with a red-card situation and I don’t think we can dispute that Donncha is at the bottom of a rolling maul. But you have dug yourself into a hole and a red-card with 30 minutes ago against Leicester is tough to deal with.”

Leicester’s director of rugby, Richard Cockerill, said: “The game is 80 minutes so if you were giving the points out at half-time then we clearly lost but the game is over 80 minutes.

“We did some good things and asserted enough pressure to give yellow cards and penalties. The penalty count was pretty heavy in Worcester’s direction. They played really well and they got a good lead and it was a really tough wind and both sides were having to run against the wind."

Cockerill added: “We had a couple of really poor lapses in defence and we got punished. If you are playing over 80 minutes I thought we were good for our win and Worcester getting nothing is pretty tough for them because I thought they played really well.”