Assistant Coach Matt Mason revealed the disappointment in the Worcestershire Rapids dressing room after the seven wicket defeat by Derbyshire Falcons and admitted: "We are a little bit unsure of how we've quite lost that one."
Mason felt that Worcestershire had posted a challenging score in the Royal London One-Day clash at New Road as fine knocks from Alexei Kervezee (77) and Ross Whiteley (61) had helped them to 295 all out.
But a century from Hamish Rutherford and excellent support from Billy Godleman, Wayne Madsen and Neil Broom saw the Falcons win with 11 balls to spare.
Mason said: "We are disappointed. The lads are very quiet in the dressing room. You can see the disappointment on their faces.
"At the start of the last innings, we thought we probably had enough runs to be fair. It was a tough wicket to score on.
"It looked a little bit two-paced and getting slower so we thought we probably had enough but hats off to the Derbyshire lads.
"I thought there were some great partnerships in there that probably killed us off really. We just couldn't get those early breakthroughs to sit them on the back foot and Rutherford's innings was fantastic and Madsen is a class player and they controlled the innings really.
"I've always thought the key to winning these games is taking early wickets and we just couldn't do it unfortunately."
As regards Worcestershire's total, Mason said: "I thought it was pretty good. It was obviously tough. You could see the way we started, we couldn't get out of the blocks, it was hard work.
"Alexei injected some much needed energy into the innings and Ross's knock was great and there was some good stuff down the order.
"I thought we had 30 or 40 more than they might have thought we would get.
"We will sit down and analyse where we've gone wrong, where we need to improve and we are a little bit unsure of how we've quite lost that one to be fair. We were in a good position.
"Right now if you ask me, I'd say it was that inability to take those early wickets and get that breakthrough and put them under some real pressure.
"They seemed to control the innings for the most part. We just couldn't get Rutherford out. We tried things but he was too good on the day it would be fair to say. Ultimately I think they outplayed us a bit there."
Derbyshire century-maker Hamish Rutherford said: “It was nice to score some runs and contribute to a good team performance to get off in this competition in the right way.
“I think Worcestershire’s total was maybe a touch light on what we thought par was but again I think the wicket was a touch slow and with variable bounce.
"I figure 300 on that was probably alright. As we showed, we took it deep and managed to get the runs.”
