Worcestershire bowling coach Matt Mason praised the efforts of Jack Shantry, Charlie Morris and Mitchell McClenaghan in pegging back Derbyshire in the LV County Championship clash at Derby.
The home side stood on 153-1 at one stage but were restricted to 323-8 off 96 overs by the close.
Shantry bowled a marathon 32 overs and finished with 2-66, Morris picked up four wickets to reach 50 for the season and McClenaghan showed plenty of aggression without reward.
Mason told BBC Hereford-Worcester's Dave Bradley: "I thought the first hour of the day belonged to us. I thought we bowled well although they played well.
"Then we let it slip going into the lunch break, they got a bit of momentum, wrestled it back from us, and we didn't bowl particularly well in that half hour leading up to lunch.
"I thought we suffered again the other side of lunch and we probably didn't quite nail our disciplines and young Joe (Leach) had a tough day today.
"But looking at the score now, I'm really proud of the efforts of Jack Shantry and Charlie Morris to stand up and try and cover for one of the guys that was struggling today.
"For Jack to bowl 30 odd overs for that economy rate, was a fantastic fighting effort. He is an unsung hero.
"We made it hard for ourselves but we fought back as best as we could I thought.
"I thought big Mitchell McClenaghan tried his absolute wotsits off to try and get something happening in that game and he was a bit unlucky not to get a couple of wickets."
Mason added: "I thought we might have a chance to keep them under 300 for a little moment.
"At the end of the day I would say Derbyshire have shaded us to be completely honest.
"Tomorrow will be a big day. We've got to finish them off as quickly as we can and we're going to have to bat well.
"There is still some movement around in that pitch and if you bowl well, there is still something in it, so we are going to have to apply ourselves well with the bat.
"Would we have batted? I'm not entirely sure. We looked at the wicket this morning and it had a green tinge to it.
"We ummed and aahed a bit to be fair and I'd like to say it was a good thing we lost the toss because we were a little bit undecided.
"As it turned out, it was probably a better wicket to bat on than we initially thought it might have been."
