Nothing to fear - Box

ROB BOX was a happy man despite a 23-16 defeat in Guernsey's first London Three South-West game. The head coach blamed lack of game time on not coming away from Andover with victory, but said that the signs were promising for the remainder of the campaign.

'I was very pleased and am very excited for the rest of the season because now we know that we can cope in this league,' Box said.

'This is the team that is being tipped to win the league. If that is the best in this league, we will not have a problem staying up.

'I believe if we had had a couple of pre-season fixtures, we could have put a lot of points on them.

'They were a very big outfit and the key was that they had had three pre-season fixtures and we did not have any due to bad organisation on our club's part. We were behind on game time.'

Box reckoned that the Andover pack was, on average, two stones per man heavier than Guernsey's, yet the Sarnians won all their own scrums and stole a couple against the head.

The visitors led 6-3 at the break thanks to two Louw Brand penalties, but despite second-half tries from new prop Simon Sharrott and Jim Elliott, they came away with nothing.

'Our plan is to try and win our home games and if we can nick a couple of away wins it will be a bonus.'