WORCESTERSHIRE director of cricket Steve Rhodes believes his young team can only improve with experience despite the unwanted addition of relegation to their CVs.

The County needed to win both their final games to avoid the drop from LV= County Championship Division One but had left themselves too much to do after only two victories in the competition all season.

A promising performance in the penultimate game at Durham set up the chance of a success but they once again could not complete the task and lost by three wickets for their 10th defeat of the Championship campaign from 15 fixtures.

It means Steve Rhodes' side are only playing to finish above Hampshire in the table in the final game at home to second-placed Middlesex from Tuesday with their bottom two spot confirmed.

However, Rhodes will already be looking to bounce back from Division Two at the first attempt with a strong group of young players tied down to contracts.

The addition of the right players alongside the prospects and captain Daryl Mitchell will now be key to the County's progression, particularly in terms of overseas signings.

Rhodes said of relegation: "I didn't want that to happen but even now that's history. It is a learning cycle for all our group of players and support team, as long as we carry on learning and improving.

"What has been hard this year is this young group of players lack a lot of experience. There are no international players playing for us, apart from our overseas signings.

"If you look at Durham's (Paul) Collingwood-(Scott) Borthwick partnership, it was absolutely crucial in the game of cricket.

"We are coming up against sides with some international experience and that will come to us. That's on its way already. We've got a couple in the Lions squad now and they will start to get a little bit more exposure to better cricket and they will be better for it for Worcestershire."

Rhodes continued: "No one likes losing and we've had a few losses this year. But we made a lot of the running against a side who have been in Division One for a period of time now.

"We lost a day through the weather and we've played the dominant cricket.

"We didn't quite bowl as well as we could on the final day and that meant the difference but there was some good play from Durham as well.

"I'm very hopeful that all of our young team will have learnt a lot from this situation."

Worcestershire fell away in the Championship after exiting the NatWest T20 Blast in the quarter-finals and struggling to make an impact in the Royal London One-Day Cup.

Rhodes added: "It is a hectic time. Some of the other teams have got a little bit more depth in terms of lads who can play first-team cricket and that helps through those periods.

"The amount of effort we put in up to that point as well, it was just physically and mentally really demanding to try and get through.

"But that in itself is experience, learning that it's a marathon and not a sprint, and you need to get up the next day knowing you've only got two months left of the season, get stuck in and do the job. Those are the sort of things that experienced players manage to do."