Acting captain Richard Montgomerie believes Sussex need another 39 points from their five remaining Championship games to secure their place in Division One.

The county are in third place despite Saturday's 208-run defeat by Warwickshire. The bad news is that all their rivals have games in hand, two in the case of the Edgbaston side, Somerset and Lancashire.

The good news is that four of the five games they have left are at home, the other at Leicester at the end of the month.

Montgomerie, who expects to return to the ranks when champions-elect Surrey visit Hove on Thursday week, said: "Three or four weeks ago we set ourselves a target of 150 points to stay up. We've got 27 from the last two and if we maintain that then we will be comfortable."

Montgomerie refused to blame tiredness for Sussex's demise in Birmingham when they lost eight wickets after lunch, six of them to seam bowler Alan Richardson who exploited uneven bounce to claim a career-best 8-46 as Sussex, chasing a target of 401, were bowled out for 192 in 66.5 overs.

He added: "We've had ten days of hard cricket virtually on the trot and eventually that is going to take its toll but the main reason we lost was that we didn't bowl as well as we could in their first innings.

"In hindsight, I should have batted first when we won the toss."

By not doing so Montgomerie condemned his side to batting last on a pitch which deteriorated on the final day. Yet when he was putting on 105 either side of lunch after the early loss of nightwatchman Billy Taylor it appeared as if Sussex were on their way to saving the game.

Cottey followed-up his first innings century with 64, but he was pinned by a shooter, and when Richardson got another grubber to jag back in his next over to unseat Montgomerie for 45 the writing was on the wall for Sussex.

Richardson squared up Tim Ambrose and then Bas Zuiderent prodded to short leg to give Mark Waugh the first of his two wickets.

Robin Martin-Jenkins and Matt Prior dug in for seven overs to give Sussex hope that they could still save the game. However, Richardson returned to the attack to have Prior caught at slip with the second ball of a decisive spell which was eventually to earn him 3-8 from 22 balls.

The week-long break the squad are about to enjoy could not have come at a better time as it should allow the likes of Adams, Mark Davis and Michael Yardy the chance to regain full fitness and Jason Lewry, Kevin Innes and Matt Prior to rest niggling knocks.

There is even a slight possibility that James Kirtley could return for the Surrey game although there is no chance of him being rushed back.

Scores: Warwickshire 493 and 284-6 dec, Sussex 377 and 192 (Cottey 64, Richardson 8-46). Warwickshire (20pts) beat Sussex (7) by 208 runs.