Coach Bailey remains confident and says scoreline was hard on his side

Old Streetonians coach David Bailey insisted that he was not disappointed following his side’s opening-day 39-21 loss away to Enfield Ignatians.

The Hoxton-based side flew out of the blocks in the first game of the season in London Two North East, but failed to convert their first-half pressure into enough points.

“We completley dominated the first half,” said Bailey.

“It was only some good defending from Enfield that stopped us assailing a big lead, so credit to them for that.

“In the end, we didn’t make our dominance pay and convert pressure into points and we let them back into the game.”

Old Streets were leading the game 16-8 at one point in the second half, but once Enfield took the lead, Old Streets were caught chasing for a losing bonus point.

“With 20 minutes to go, we were winning,” explained Bailey.

“When they took the lead we were really pushing for that losing bonus point and that is when we conceded two silly tries.

“If you take 14 points away from them then that score is a closer reflection of how the game went.

“A scoreline of 39-21 is extremely harsh on us.”

However, despite allowing Enfield to score two soft tries, Bailey refused to lay blame for the defeat on his players.

“I can’t blame them for pushing forward late in the game,” he said.

“They want to win and you have to remember that we are a side that is still trying to get to know one another.

“The referee didn’t cover himself in glory either and didn’t seem to stop blowing his whistle for the last 20 minutes.

“Enfield have a huge advantage in the fact that they team is mostly made up of old school friends who have played together week in, week out for a number of years.

“As an inner-city team, we don’t have that advantage and our side is constantly changing due to work committments and other factors.

“We expect to use between 40 and 50 players in the first team this season.”

This weekend, Old Streets host Romford & Gidea Park at home and Bailey is expecting a very different game.

“We know that Romford are a very big and slow team,” he said.

“They will lack creativity and we need to exploit that.”