WELLINGTON manager Jon Pugh said his side's quality was not where it need to be after they fell to a 4-2 defeat to Worcester City.

City, who play in the league above their hosts, dominated the first half with Liam Lockett putting them ahead after six minutes.

On loan from Westfields Kieron Blackburn was forced into a string of saves to deny Dave Reynolds twice to keep his side in the tie before the break.

City did double their lead on the hour when following a slick move around the penalty area Jamie Smith linked up with Reynolds who diverted the ball home.

Worcester were out of sight with two goals in as many minutes mid-way through the second half.

Firstly a wonder goal came from Sean Brain who brought a long ball down before lobbing the goalkeeper on 67 minutes.

Moments later the visitors opened up the Welly defence again before Connor Mooney rounded the goalkeeper.

However, Wellington did reply with 22 minutes left on the clock when Sam Pearson's ball into the box had the Worcester defence in trouble and Joe Davies took advantage sliding home.

Paul Jones reduced the deficit to 4-2 at full-time after beating the defence before firing past the goalkeeper.

"I thought we didn't perform well enough today," said Pugh.

"We tried to put the message into our players that we needed to be closer and put them under pressure instead of just letting them dominate the ball, which we probably did for the first 60 minutes.

"When we did put them under pressure we made a couple of cracks, got a couple of opportunities and scored two.

"In all honesty the score-line looks a little more favourable than what we were expecting.

"Having said that Kieron (Blackburn) in goal for us on loan from Westfields was outstanding considering he hasn't played for so long.

"In the end they've caught us, they looked sharp and swapped their front three twice. They didn't seem to get worse but they got better.

"Two goals we've made mistakes for, we've either passed it to their striker or they've nicked it off our defender.

"When you're giving good teams like that opportunities, that's the last thing you want to do.

"We put our bodies on the line but our quality wasn't quite where we need to be today."

By the time Wellington play at Gresley Rovers next Tuesday they will have played Worcester City, Hereford FC and Lydney (Saturday) in their last three pre-season matches.

"We've tried our best to play tough games as it's no good playing teams in the league below or even lower than that just to get minutes into our legs," added Pugh.

"We've got to challenge ourselves against the top teams if we want to be realistic and challenge for this Hellenic League.

"There are some good teams there so pitching ourselves against top opposition is what we want to do."