Director of Cricket Steve Rhodes was disappointed with Worcestershire's batting performance on the opening day of the LV = County Championship clash with Sussex at New Road but insisted: "We are still in this game."
Worcestershire will be looking to make early inroads into the Sussex reply but Rhodes is first hoping his side can reach 200 and secure a batting bonus point when they resume on 185-9.
Alex Gidman is unbeaten on 37 and Charlie Morris one after rain wiped out the final 26 overs as Chris Jordan finished with 5-57.
Rhodes said: "I was very disappointed to be honest. We won the toss on a good wicket. I thought Chris Jordan bowled extremely well, swung the ball nicely, and made it very difficult apart from a couple of partnerships.
"I thought Clarkey and Brett (D'Oliveira) were very solid in the morning to recover and Giddo has played nicely towards the end.
"But apart from that, some of our shot selection and execution was very poor today.
"We look at the end of the day's play, having won the toss and batted on a used wicket, and we certainly should have been in a lot better position than this.
"Sometimes you've got to value your wicket a bit more and we could have done with doing that today.
"But we make mistakes, we all make mistakes, that's why we are human, and let's hope we can learn from them.
"We are still in this game definitely. We'd like to get over 200 and then get amongst them and bowl them out. But there are other ways of making life easier for yourself.
"Generally today it was quite a docile pitch. There were a couple of good bowlers out there in Magoffin and Jordan but we've got to do better than that."
D'Oliveira (38) and Clarke (40) dug in to add 80 in 32 overs for the third wicket before five wickets fell in the space of 43 balls.
Rhodes said: "Brett has been opening in the second team for a period of time so it is not something he is not used to but he played nicely today, he played down his stumps.
"He had one dodgy flirt outside off stump but apart from that, he got beat by some good balls and played really well as did Clarkey.
"I thought it was an excellent partnership because we were in the mire with two wickets down."
