Key is certain Leeds will quickly resolve the teething problems in their defence

Ambitious Leeds have Heineken Cup qualification on their agenda but got their campaign off to the worst possible start after a second-half surrender led to a 32-16 loss.

The Aviva Premiership game was poised on a knife-edge at half-time with Bath leading by only a single point but Leeds's defence collapsed in the second half as Sam Vesty, Matt Carraro and Luke Watson danced over to give the much-fancied West Country outfit a simple five points.

"We felt very strong at half-time and the chat in the dressing room was nothing but positive," said director of rugby Key, whose side responded late on through England hooker Steve Thompson, who was one of seven debutants for the Yorkshire club.

"In fact, we were disappointed that we got ourselves into so many good areas of the field that we could do things with and we turned the ball over too easily. And that was really the crux come the second half.

"You found a different Bath in the second half and we knew that would be the case. They're pass-masters at turning games around and we knew we had to be stronger – and unfortunately we weren't.

"There's no excuses; at the end of the day we can't go on, week-on-week, making the same sort of mistakes we have (against Bath).

"We are just hugely disappointed we allowed Bath to score so many tries in our first game.

"There'll certainly be some work done in the coming week to ensure that doesn't continue."

Leeds's successful survival fight last season was built on their sound defence and Key stressed that work to rebuild confidence ahead of next Saturday's trip to Gloucester will begin immediately.

He said: "Any side that scores a try against us we're going to be concerned about because we put such a huge emphasis on a defence that has worked favourably for us on a number of occasions, so we see those errors as teething problems. We'll fix them; it's the first game of the season, there's no worries from our side at the moment. What we cannot do is allow tries to be scored against us so freely."

Though only a consolation, Thompson's late try at least proved that the new-look Leeds retain the fighting spirit that served them so well last season.

Key said: "We didn't lose our way and as a result we came back and scored. What we didn't do was lose our belief, we believed in the game plan.

"What we needed offensively was quality and clinical ball, and at times we were our own worst enemy in that.

"But what we did show in the last 10 minutes by sticking to our guns will be encouraging going into next week."