NOTTINGHAM Rugby's Glenn Delaney has warned his players that they will have to raise their standards for the game against league leaders Exeter Chiefs at Welford Road on Saturday (4.15pm).

The Green and Whites' seven-match winning run came to an abrupt halt on Saturday when they lost 31-25 away to Plymouth Albion, who were winning for only the second time this season.

He has told his injury-ravaged squad that a similar performance will not be good enough.

He said: "We've got to rise above last Saturday and put our stamp on games. We need a bit more composure and a bit more maturity.

"We have a tough one against Exeter this Saturday and if the guys play like that then they won't be good enough again this weekend. We will have to work pretty hard in training this week to make sure we can improve going into this game."

Following the defeat to Plymouth, Delaney was hugely disappointed. He said: "We weren't good enough, we didn't apply ourselves and we made a huge amount of individual errors.

"We didn't get through phases and didn't execute anything. We made big errors at the wrong times

"There were a lot of individual errors defensively that allowed them to score and in attack we simply weren't recycling well enough – it's not what we've been doing recently that's for sure.

"It was very similar to last year's game down here, where we lost by a close margin.

"When you compound that against a team like Plymouth, who are desperate to win, that's the result you get.

"We were very close at the end but that's as bad as I've seen us play for a long, long time.

"I think at the end of the day that maybe we got what we deserved.

"We nearly had a chance at the end to nick it but again our execution was very poor – it was a tough day at the office."

Delaney's injury list also worsened following the game with David Jackson, Rohaan Nirmalendran and Ben Johnston all forced to leave the field.

He said: "It's been a horror show injury-wise in the backs, we've got a lot of guys who I think will be missing for this week. A lot of guys went off injured, which isn't great."