King demands more from Havant
Havant slumped to an opening day 44-27 defeat against newly-promoted Civil Service at Hooks Lane in National League London division three.
The home side were put to the sword by the powerful Civil Service outfit in the first half.
They improved in the second period but were well beaten.
Director of rugby Adam King is under no illusions about the size of the task facing Havant this season.
But he was in positive mood after the defeat.
King said: 'Our lack of experience, with the number of key players we have got sadly sidelined at the moment, told on us.'
'Civil Service were very well organised and largely southern hemisphere-based, with five Kiwis coming into their squad this week.
'We do have a lot of players to come back but at the same time we need to perform better than we did in the first half.
'At the start we let Civil Service play but in the second half after we introduced James McSeveney and Graham Butterworth, we looked a better outfit.
'We scored four tries and came right back into the game until we ran into yellow-card trouble in the last five minutes.'
Havant couldn't cope with the pace and quality of the Civil Service backs in the first half and the visitors raced into a staggering 34-3 interval lead.
At that stage a battering looked on the cards for the hosts but the tide turned on 50 minutes when Chris Ramwell scored a try following an interception by James Sutton.
Two more tries, the first by Gav Hart, following a superb Joel Knight break and then Graham Butterworth brought Havant back to 20-34 with 10 minutes of the contest remaining.
Civil Service returned to the ascendancy, though Hart managed a second touchdown at the end to give Havant a bonus point.
'We showed a lot of character and caused them a lot of problems,' added King.
'It is going to be a tough season to stay up because we are going to come up against sides who have recruited a lot of southern hemisphere players.
'We must look to get our key players back as soon as possible and work to bring more players into the squad.
'It is patently obvious that it is going to be a hard year and it will be our ability to stand up and be counted both on and off the field which will lead to the gradual recovery of this club.'
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Saturday 04 February 2012
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