WASPS were made to swallow another hard truth in a season of grim realities on Sunday, when Worcester rocked up at Adams Park to shove the black and golds firmly into a relegation dogfight.

Warriors’ 6-0 win was nothing to write home about, but it consigned Wasps to a fifth successive league loss and second from bottom in the Premiership table.

Director of rugby Dai Young said: “There is no point panicking. We’re in a dogfight with four or five other teams and we’re not in a better or worse situation than them.

“Not being defeatist, but the first thing you want to do in any league is make sure you’re not in relegation trouble.

“Then you can start looking at the top six and top four.

“But I don’t think we’ve ever been far enough away from the bottom couple of spots to not worry about it.

“It’s been in the back of my mind for the last four to six weeks and there’s probably three or four other teams that feel the same.

“We’re all scrapping for our lives and it will test us both physically and mentally, but you have to be up to it.”

Leicester and Saracens are next up, so the situation may well get worse before it gets better.

Young said: “When I came here I didn’t expect this to be an easy season. There isn’t a quick fix on or off the field and that’s why I wasn’t going to sign a one-year contract here.

“This is a real project. People obviously see the on-field struggles and we need to work to get that right, but there are a lot of things off the field we need to get right as well. Nothing will happen overnight.”

The off-field issues – just the small matter of new owner and probably a new ground – won’t be easily resolved if the unthinkable happens and Wasps do go down.

But Young, who has a four-year deal at the club, is resolutely upbeat.

He said: “It’s not all doom and gloom. It’s tough at the moment and we’re not in the position we’d like to be in but things will turn, I’m sure.

“It’s frustrating because we’ve thrown away a couple of wins. We’ve lost games that we could have won and should have won.

“But it’s not the case that we’re getting totally outplayed. Last week we were totally outplayed by Gloucester and we were totally outplayed by Sale. Any other games we’ve lost we’ve pretty much been in the game.

“We are making mistakes and we have to get better, but large parts of our game are better than they were last year.

“We just need to get a couple of wins quickly, that will take a lot of pressure off us.

“It’s not easy, this isn’t an easy league, but there is a long way to go and we’ve got to keep highlighting the positives to the players and working on the negatives.”