Paul Gustard bemoaned his side’s handling errors and lack of attacking firepower as Harlequins went down 19-14 Premiership to Worcester Warriors at Twickenham Stoop this weekend.

Quins had started the game strongly after going ahead through Alex Dombrandt and James Chisholm tries, but a second-half score from Warriors full-back James Shillcock broke the home team’s hearts to leave them dwindling in 10th in the table after four games played.

And Gustard, while upbeat about the resilience that characterised his team’s defensive duties, was scathing about Quins’ inability to be clinical on the ball.

“It’s those handling errors sometimes that are killing us ­– our handling errors were 21 today compared to their 13, so it’s small things like that at the moment,” he said.

“We’ve got to come onto the ball with pace – we’ve got to sit defenders down and run over the top of people, and we didn’t do that.

“I actually thought we managed the game in terms of territory quite well, but we just made too many mistakes.

“We had two opportunities in the second half to build further pressure from set pieces, but we knocked the ball on first phase from a scrum play and we knocked the ball on first phase from a line-out play.

“Then they got that field territory against us and then we’re just defending again and again.

“I thought mostly our defence was outstanding and our set piece functioned really well, but we just weren’t able to maintain pressure.

“In any game you want to score early and build confidence in the team, and we did that but after 14 minutes we didn’t score another point.”

Quins now sit five points off fourth-place side Sale Sharks – who won 28-18 against Wasps on Friday night – with just a solitary victory this season against Bristol Bears that came in Round 2 of the competition.

And despite taking an early 14-3 lead after just quarter of an hour this weekend they were left to rue their errors, succumbing to a second successive defeat to leave Gustard with questions to ponder.

Despite their slow start, however, the head coach remained in buoyant spirits about their prospects this season.

“We played really well for that first quarter of an hour – we played with ambition and intent and we came onto the ball,” he added.

“I was pretty happy with the resolve and intent we showed in defence, but we’ve got to work hard on our attacking endeavour in terms of dominating contact.

“We look forward to getting back to work – there’s no point feeling sorry for ourselves and we’ve got to do it together, from the coaching staff to the playing staff to the support staff and the fans.

“It’s the same group of people that got to fifth last year, and we’re doing our very best to keep moving on up this year.”