Matt Mason is backing Worcestershire's bowlers to bounce back from a disappointing opening day in the Specsavers County Championship clash with Essex at New Road if they revert to "good disciplines and patience."
The County had just the one wicket to show for their efforts – from Matt Henry – on a truncated day of just 40 overs in which Essex reached 144-1 after electing to bat.
An unbroken stand of 128 between England Test captain Alastair Cook and England Lions batsman Tom Westley gave current leaders Essex the early initiative.
Assistant coach-bowling coach Mason said: "It was a frustrating day to watch as a coach because I know anything we do isn't through lack of effort.
"But we didn't quite have our discipline with us this morning and probably over-pitched and were a little bit on the full side with deliveries at times.
"Credit to them in some ways in trying to get those wickets early but they just didn't quite get it right and it cost us momentum really.
"They scored at a lively rate, I think they had 70 odd after 13 overs, so not an ideal start to get the one wicket but I must admit after that there didn't look as if there was too much going on.
"But to their credit the lads were pretty honest in the way they assessed themselves.
"They knew they hadn't done their job the way they should have done this morning and I thought in that last session, albeit it a short one, they pegged it back a little bit.
"We will be looking to bounce back. We saw that today in the game on TV at Trent Bridge. Yorkshire had a poor first session and then bowled Notts out in the second session.
"There is no reason why we can't do the same, back to good disciplines and patience.
"We are playing against two very good players in Alastair Cook and Tom Westley, England captain and England Lions, and it is a good challenge for our lads, and a good learning curve as well for the younger guys like Ed Barnard."
Mason admitted the stop-start nature to the start of the campaign and the adverse weather has not been ideal.
He said: "Our season feels like it hasn't quite got started with this weather that we've had and it has been a very disjointed start.
"It has been tough for the players to really get going.
"Again today the stop start nature of it means as a bowler you are trying to get warm again, get into your spell, then you have to come off and it can be frustrating.
"But it is like that for batters as well so at the end of the day, no excuses.
"We all know we can do our job with the ball a lot better and hopefully tomorrow morning we will.
"It is a really good surface. We would have liked to have batted on it as well. It has got a little bit of carry.
"Again if you make use of that new ball you can take wickets so that's where we probably let ourselves down a little bit.
"But when our turn comes to bat, I'm sure if we can see off their new ball bowlers, we can get a big score as well."
