WORCESTER Warriors director of rugby Mike Ruddock has given a stamp of approval to the half-back pairing of Ryan Powell and James Brown.

The duo replaced Matt Powell and Loki Crichton against Harlequins as Ruddock tries to find a successful half-back partnership - a problem area for Warriors all season.

Although the Sixways side were soundly beaten at The Stoop, 36-15, Ruddock was happy with his new pairing's contribution.

He said: "We certainly didn't lose the game because of the performance of our half-backs - I thought we struggled to get control up front.

"Whenever we were getting a bit of a foot-hold and, for example, if we did well in a scrum, we tended to give away a penalty, so it was difficult for our nine and 10 to build a game.

"Browny worked hard in particular and I thought he deserved his try at the end, but we struggled to sustain a forward platform and forward pressure to work our field positions from penalties because we just didn't get too many of them.

"Browny was possibly lacking a bit of match sharpness, but I thought overall he did OK.

"Really, the biggest thing for us was that we couldn't build our game for long enough periods without giving away a penalty."

Poor discipline was again Warriors undoing as their yellow card count rose to three in the last two games.

Similarly to the 19-6 defeat at Saracens, Harlequins took advantage of their opponents being a man light to put 10 points on the scoreboard while Drew Hickey was in the cooler.

However, although Ruddock was disappointed with the result, he said he was glad to see his side trying to be a bit more adventurous.

He added: "In terms of conceding points while we've got a player in the bin, it was quite similar to the game at Saracens, but I felt we weren't particularly ambitious at Vicarage Road.

"Although we only conceded one try there, we didn't attempt to play too much rugby until the game had passed us by.

"At Harlequins, I thought we went out to play and, in some ways, that added to our downfall as we knocked-on and made errors.

"We tried to play a bit of catch-up rugby after the break and that's when the game got away from us.

"We felt we had a sniff of a bonus point at one stage and the lads tried to run it from an impossible position which ended up putting more pressure on us. I can sort of forgive them for that to be honest.

"But, I'd rather see us go out and try and play rugby rather than just going through the motions - that's what I believe in and that's what I try and coach."