PERFORMANCE manager Josh Leach said his RGC U18 side can take a lot from their 34-10 loss to Blues South last weekend.

After a slow start the young Gogs managed to recover and went into the break with a slender advantage, but they conceded a try shortly after the restart and a pair of further scores late on condemned them to defeat.

Despite their Regional Age Grade loss, Leach took a great deal of positives from the clash, especially given the lack of preparation time due to College and School fixtures.

He said: "In avoiding an overlap with the ollege competition block, preparation is limited to only seven sessions. Therefore, we have narrowed the focus of our preparations to just a few areas; set-piece attack, turn over attack and creating an energetic, aggressive mind-set in defence.

"Considering the short preparations I thought our scrum attack was good and our turnover attack resulted in our score but too often we missed opportunities due to handling errors.

“Defensively we have made some good progress but still have a way to go. Our energy was good, but lack of dominance in one-on-one tackle situations often put us on the back foot.

"Regional Age Grade is certainly a big step up for some of the boys coming out of college and club blocks, the speed and physicality are greater, and there's less room for error.

“With the step up comes a challenge of self-belief, and when you look at how we started and finished the game that was perhaps missing in parts. Once we scored there was a significant difference in the energy and we created a number of opportunities as a result.

“The boys have to develop the belief that they can compete at this level, and the end of the day it's one school boy against another, and if they can get their heads around this they'll surprise themselves."