SKIPPER Gerrit-Jan van Velze believes Worcester Warriors will overcome their “poor decision-making” blips in the final moments of tight matches.

The Warriors captain watched from the stands as they slipped to agonising Premiership defeats against Leicester Tigers, Harlequins, Bath and Wasps.

Van Velze had knee surgery after the 48-18 defeat to Saracens at the end of November and returned in Sunday’s 30-15 home loss to Exeter Chiefs.

The South African back row is expected to lead Warriors in Sunday’s must-win bottom-of-the-table clash at London Irish (1pm).

Van Velze, 27, said: “You can’t just look at one game. You have to look at Leicester and Harlequins at home and Wasps away.

“We were in comfortable positions to win but, by making certain decisions, we ended up losing the games, which was frustrating.

“But, if you look at our group, we are young and are going to make mistakes. We don’t have the luxury of having players with 50 international caps under their belts.

“People don’t necessarily have the correct references under their belt to make the right decisions but that’s going to come with time.

“It comes down to poor decision-making in the last 10 minutes. It’s easy to see it from the sidelines when you’re not involved but pressure makes you do silly things. We can learn from it.”

Van Velze admits his spell on the sidelines was hard because he couldn’t influence matters on the field.

“It has been frustrating in the sense of not being able to play, realising things (on the field) and not impacting on them, but that’s always going to happen,” said van Velze.

“It’s always easier to see it from the cheap seats when a game is going on.

“But we have to remember where we are, who we are and what we’ve achieved already, and we’re not far off where we need to be, which is the most frustrating thing.”

Van Velze arrived at Sixways from Northampton Saints in the summer of 2014 and took over the captaincy from Jonathan Thomas.

He led Warriors to the Championship title in his debut season but has seen Warriors triumph in just two of their opening 10 Premiership matches this term.

“We are only in year two of a long journey,” said van Velze. “We can’t be expected to find gold at the first strike.

“You have to be persistent.You receive some knocks and results won’t go your way but that makes the person.

“We’ve got the personnel at this club to take the club forward and judging a book by its cover post-Christmas is the worst thing you can do. The competition is not won or lost at the end of January.”