'There are 20 players leaving the club at the end of the season so there is a lot going on behind the scenes'

Worcester head coach Jonathan Thomas felt his side let their supporters down as they were hammered 62-14 by Northampton at Sixways.

Worcester’s cause was not helped by a 49th-minute red card for former England wing Chris Ashton, when he led with his shoulder into the face of an opponent.

However, after Ashton’s dismissal, Worcester capitulated and ended up conceding nine tries.

It was an embarrassing result for Worcester after a competitive first 35 minutes which saw them only trail 8-7 before Ollie Sleightholme’s first try began the downfall.

Thomas said: “That scoreline is not acceptable and our supporters don’t deserve a result like that.

“The club is in transition, there are 20 players leaving the club at the end of the season so there is a lot going on behind the scenes.

“We are not a bad team, the youngsters are working hard at the game but we are not on top of it in terms of confidence.

“In the last seven or eight games, we haven’t started well so we focused on doing that today. However, once again we conceded an early try but came into the game well after that and should have been ahead at the interval.

“We made a lot of line-breaks but we didn’t take them. I’m fed up of talking about it as it’s obvious that if you don’t take your chances in the Premiership you won’t win many games.”

Sleightholme scored four of Northampton’s tries, with George Furbank, Piers Francis, David Ribbans and Alex Mitchell adding the others. There was also a penalty try award with James Grayson kicking a penalty and six conversions.

Ashton and Chris Pennell scored Worcester’s tries with Billy Searle and Fin Smith each adding a conversion.

Northampton director of rugby Chris Boyd had some sympathy for Worcester’s plight.

He said: “I’ve been on the receiving end a few times so I know what it’s like when the floodgates open.

“It’s never very nice as all the momentum is one-way and there is no way to stop it.

“I was nervous at half-time as they were dominating parts of the game and we weren’t working hard enough.

“Injuries disrupted us but we held our composure and after last week’s disappointment at losing late on to Bristol, it was nice to have the game in the bag at an early stage.”