DIRECTOR of rugby Alan Solomons admitted Worcester Warriors paid the price for their first-half mistakes after going down 21-15 at Sale Sharks in the Gallagher Premiership.

Tries from Bryce Heem and Chris Pennell saw Warriors come from 18-0 behind to secure their second losing bonus point of the season.

Solomons praised his players for their second-half fightback but was unhappy with his side’s showing in the opening 40 minutes.

And he identified five errors that proved costly for Warriors as Josh Beaumont crossed for Sale’s first try on 20 minutes before Denny Solomona intercepted Ryan Mills’ pass to score his team’s second.

“Right at the beginning Dunky (Duncan Weir), who is a great kicker, had a kick that didn’t travel much distance and gave them the ball deep on attack,” Solomons said.

“Millsy, who is an outstanding player, hit touch directly.

“We also had two intercepts and off the back of a line-out we did a switch only for Nick Schonert to unfortunately drop the ball.

“That is not a massive amount of mistakes but they are five errors and the consequence was that they scored points from them. That was the problem.

“I said to the players (at half-time) that we have got to tighten up.

“There were a couple of line-outs near the end that went astray but apart from that we were a lot better in the second half.”

At the end of a largely one-sided opening period Warriors mounted heavy pressure on Sale’s try-line.

They failed to score as Sharks defended superbly but Solomons felt it turned the tide as Worcester battled back after the break.

“We weren’t accurate with our execution in the first half,” Solomons said.

“The coincidence was they had field position and possession of the ball.

“Full marks to Sale’s defence when they held us out for what I understand was about 38 phases.

“But for the first time they had to work really hard in defence.

“We held onto the ball which we didn’t do before and took that into the second half.

“We had our opportunities to close out the game, particularly at the end as Jonny Arr was very close to scoring.

“We showed real resilience out there. We were 18-0 down at half-time but came back into the game which was very important.”

Warriors’ defeat at the AJ Bell Stadium followed their 21-20 loss to Wasps at Sixways last weekend.

Solomons’ men host Newcastle Falcons on Saturday (3pm).

“I wasn’t satisfied with the first-half performance (against Sale) but I was with the second half,” Solomons added.

“Obviously I would have liked us to have won the game but we are really close.

“The least we deserved was a point.

“Our kicking wasn’t accurate enough so we will have a look at that.

“But in the first half the problem was our execution wasn’t accurate and that led to problems.”