Signs are positive in Portsmouth's pursuit to move up London 3 South West - and head coach Gareth Richards aiming to shock rivals Petersfield

Richards' second-bottom side returned to action against second-placed Weybridge Vandals and suffered a 24-14 defeat at Rugby Camp on Saturday.

However, the Portsmouth head coach felt there was a lot to be encouraged about with the efforts from his team against high-flying opposition.

And Richards is hoping his squad can show the improvements they are continuing to make as a collective by securing a shock victory at rivals and table-toppers Petersfield this Saturday.

He said: ‘I think we’re playing much better than we were when they (Petersfield) came to us earlier in the season so hopefully we’ll be able to give a performance and demonstrate how far the team has come. Although the results don’t show it, we have progressed and we’re a much better outfit than we were in October time.

‘We’ve set out that we want to be a bit more formidable at home, we’ve got quite a few teams to come to us with games that we think are winnable, so we’re going to target those. On the road we’ll just ride our luck a bit and see how it goes.’

Lewnnikali Mitieli Ravudolo, making just his second Portsmouth appearance, went over early in the second half as the hosts opened up a 7-5 lead against promotion-chasing Weybridge.

But the visitors produced a run of 19 unanswered points in a 10-minute spell soon after to lead 24-7 with under five minutes to play.

Portsmouth did at least grab some late reward for what was a solid showing overall as Evan Watts went over, but they were still on the end of a 24-14 defeat.