‘I expect better’ laments Smith

While H&B remain second in Kent One behind upcoming opponents Park House, Smith feels there’s still plenty to work on after surrendering a first half lead against fourth-placed opposition.

He said: “We started off well in the first 15 minutes, we were being creative and scoring, but then we switched off. We didn’t recover from a restart and they scored a try right on half time. Our lineouts began to unravel and we were losing the set-pieces.

“It was a big bump in the road. I can’t fault the guys’ endeavours as we fought for the whole 80 minutes. 22-14 doesn’t sound like a big score to lose by, but by our standards it was massive. We made a lot of mistakes.”

H&B are fixtureless this weekend and Smith hopes to utilise extra training sessions in the hope that the same errors won’t be made in a crunch clash at home to Park House on Saturday January 25.

“We’ve got to show up and man up,” Smith added. “We just didn’t click and this side is good enough to win the league. We worked hard, but the attention to detail was missing.”