British head coach Ian Turner says he has gone back to the drawing board in a bid to stop the nation's swimmers under-achieving on the big occasion.

Turner's squad have come under a barrage of criticism after picking up just three bronze medals in the World Championships in Montreal which finished yesterday.

Loughborough's James Gibson was one of the highest-profile casualties after failing to qualify for a defence of the 50 metres breaststroke title he won in Barcelona two years ago.

Bath's Darren Mew was sent home after finishing 29th - two-and-a-half seconds shy of his Commonwealth record - in the 100m breaststroke.

And Turner challenged his big names to make more of a splash on the tournament stage.

He said: "Some of our more established swimmers have not performed as well as they should have done.

"Unfortunately some of them have a history of not performing at a big meet.

"They've got to go home and address the psychological aspect of that and we have to examine the tapes and look at the workload they are getting through throughout the season.

"Some of our athletes in Britain swim very, very well against each other in the trials and produce some remarkable results.

"You've only got to look at the start sheet to see how highly ranked they all are. But unfortunately we have the problem of duplicating that in the big competitions.

"It's as though you get your best results domestically and then struggle to hang on to them internationally. It's something we will look at.

"We're aware and we've got to address that with the athletes concerned. It concerns three or four of the more established world-ranked athletes."

Caitlin McClatchey picked up bronze in the 400m freestyle on the opening day but the British squad had to wait until the final session of the meet to pick up their other two medals.

Loughborough's Liam Tancock and Cardiff's David Davies finished third in the 50m backstroke and 1500m freestyle respectively - leaving Britain's medal haul five short on Barcelona.

The likes of Rebecca Cooke, Melanie Marshall, Kate Haywood and Gregor Tait all missed out - but Turner insisted all was not doom and gloom.

He said: "We are going to get criticism but we've got a much younger team.

"Forty per cent of our team are rookies and it's the first time many of the older ones have swum in individual events.

"There have been far more world records broken than there were in Athens, the meet is stronger. The field has more quality and the times are tighter.

"Even in races that aren't breaking the world record, the depth of the field seems to be a lot greater than it was in Athens."

British swimming chief Bill Sweetenham, who had set the Great Britain team a target of returning with eight medals from Montreal, has defended the team from criticism.

The national performance director insists, that with a host of retirements following the Olympic Games, the newlook British team have done themselves justice.

"We have a young team coming through and while we've lost some senior players this team is doing very, very well," he said.

"And we should always put the expectation at eight medals. That's what we've done in the past.

"But it doesn't mean if we don't achieve that, that we haven't done a good job or a great job.

"This team has a very professional staff. It has very good athletes and they give it everything and we've done extremely well here."