WORCESTER Warriors head coach Carl Hogg praised the effort of his side despite their 17-14 defeat to Brive in the European Challenge Cup.

Warriors led for most of the game but fell to a last-minute penalty from Gaetan Germain as the hosts secured a win at the death.

But Hogg was pleased with the improvements from his side who responded well after a difficult outing at Gloucester the previous weekend produced a 55-19 Premiership beating.

He said: “The effort was outstanding. They had a big forward pack and a lot of power around scrum and drive and we worked tirelessly to contain that throughout the game.

“We got our noses in front before half-time and were in a competitive position. We said the challenge was about getting tempo in the game which we did really well in the first half.

“We tried to make the game as fast as possible and tire out their front five and when we did get long passages of play we felt the benefit around set-piece too.

“It was more about character and we wanted to bounce back from Kingsholm which we did but it was cruel to lose the game with the kick at the death.”

There were welcome returns for scrum-half duo Jonny Arr and Luke Baldwin while a number of players put in fine displays against the Top 14 side, according to Hogg.

He continued: “We want to create that healthy competition and there’s definitely one or two who put their hands up.

“Will Spencer was outstanding and Marco Mama too while it’s great to see Jonny and Luke back and Ryan Mills at 10 so there were lots of positives.

“Matt Cox was excellent for us again. His work-rate was tireless and his effort was phenomenal like a lot of the players.”

Warriors’ defence was breached seven times at Gloucester a week ago but they defended brilliantly for the majority of their French test.

Hogg explained: “Brive had lots of possession in our 22 coming through drive and we managed to stop them and it was just that relentless pressure on our goal-line.

"We showed bags of character and attitude to defend our line on a number of occasions.”

The former Scotland international also paid tribute to USA star Joe Taufete’e who made his club debut in France.

He added: “Joe is a powerful athlete and is going to be a good rugby player for us and the key challenge for him was integrating set-piece which he did reasonably well. He will be an asset for us going forward.”

With a final European match of the season against Enisei-STM at Sixways on Saturday and Warriors unable to progress in the competition, Hogg admitted he’d be looking to implement a similar team to the one who tested Brive.

“We’ll look at a similar team but also introduce one or two others as well,” he said.

“We want to create that strength in depth across the squad with Enisei next and then two Anglo-Welsh games to build into the next block of Premiership rugby.”