TENBURY captain Tom Lawley is confident that positive results will come despite a disappointing defeat to Redditch at the weekend.

A victory at Penlu would have stretched the gap between Tenbury and bottom club Redditch but the visitors left with a 32-14 victory.

Tenbury are now just four points off the bottom in the Midlands 4 West (South) table and remain six points adrift of ninth-placed Pershore.

Zack Thompson scored two tries for Tenbury, and converted both himself, but they weren’t enough to get anything from the game.

Despite the disappointing result, Lawley says there were positives to take from the performance.

“In defence, we weren’t off the line at them enough and it made it very difficult to defend against,” he said.

“In attack, we were all over them. I know the score doesn’t show it but the two tries were got were from brilliant pieces of play and we outclassed them at times.

“Zack had a really good game. The first try came from the back of a ruck and he darted over. The second came from a really good step and he ran it in.

“We just couldn’t get the ball consistently enough to exploit it - and that was the issue.

“We were going in to win the game and maybe we put a bit too much pressure on ourselves which may have had an effect.

“On the day, though, Redditch were just the better team. They didn’t seem like a side that should be down at the bottom.”

It’s been a tough season in the Midlands 4 West (South) for Tenbury so far following their brilliant promotion last term.

The victory over Harbury at the start of the month remains their only success so far and they have the worst points difference in the league.

The loss of former captain Ed Gough to Malvern hit the team hard but his replacement Lawley says the squad are sticking together in hope that better times are ahead.

“We showed on Saturday, albeit not for the whole 80 minutes, that we can play at this level,” the skipper, whose side travel to league leaders Stoke Old Boys this Saturday, said.

“We’ll get back into training and work on the things that weren’t quite up to scratch.

“I honestly think we can beat any team in this league as we showed against Harbury a few weeks ago.

“We need to start putting together performances for the entire game rather than just periods.

“In our last game, we were brilliant in the first half against Pershore and then fall apart in the second half. We need to string that whole game performance together and if we do, we’ll be fine.

“We’ve lost some good players and any team losing three or four key players will struggle.

“I think we’ve done quite well under the circumstances. We’re bedding new players into new positions but we’re getting there.

“We’re all confident that results will start to show how good we are soon enough.”