DIRECTOR of rugby Dean Ryan has challenged his players to find an inner “drive” to help Worcester Warriors finish their season on a high.

Since securing their place in Aviva Premiership thanks to four successive wins, Warriors have been on the receiving end of two heavy defeats.

Exeter Chiefs ran riot at Sandy Park, winning 50-12, before Wasps added to Worcester’s woes with a 54-35 thrashing at Sixways.

Ryan believes his side have shown “immaturity” in recent weeks and have lost the “intent” needed to win games.

But he also blamed their dip in form on the “weird situation” they find themselves in, having already staved off the threat of relegation.

“We have lost a lot of the external drivers that were there every week, so we became performance-focused and it wasn’t enough to win the contest,” he said.

“That is an immaturity from us as a group finding ourselves in new circumstances.

“It was not until half-time that we were able to really address that (against Wasps) and then you can see the clear difference between the second half performance than our first half performance.

“There is just a lot of guys who have never found themselves in that circumstances where the only driver is themselves and it is not very often that the Premiership throws up these types of circumstances.

“You are normally, by the nature of Europe, the play-offs and relegation, involved in something, so this is a new challenge.

“But we have got to get it right so we finish in the right way.”

Warriors now face Leicester Tigers at Welford Road on Saturday (3pm) before tackling leaders Saracens at Sixways a week later.

“We are aware of this situation we are in, yet we have spent a lot of time talking about how we want to finish the season,” said Ryan.

“I am never disillusioned with what we are capable of doing, but with a young group sometimes we can get things wrong in terms of what the contest of rugby is, and against a side as dangerous as what Wasps were we need to be right on it.”

“We are a side that needs to be close to operating at 100 per cent all the time otherwise we are very short in ability in other areas.

“If we don’t get that right then you can see the gap in some of the areas in class.

“Wasps have got class all across the field, so they can probably operate at a slightly lower threshold than we can.

“We can’t afford to do that and that’s where the freedom of not having pressure on our game has lost a level of intent that under-pinned our games.”