ST AUSTELL’S winless start to the season stretched to four games on Saturday with a heavy 41-17 defeat at Devonport Services, but head coach Sam Parsons is refusing to let his side sink into despair.

Despite another sobering scoreline in Regional One Tribute Ale South West, Parsons insists the Saints must stay focused and fight their way out of their early-season rut.

“Of course it’s disappointing, but that was by far and away our best performance of the season so far,” he said. “I thought out first half performance was pretty good, we dominated possession for long periods, but we leaked a soft try on the stroke of half time and that created a bit of a momentum shift.

“Instead of going in just five points down, we were instead 12 adrift and when they scored two quickfire tries in the second half, it put them out of sight and they were able to control things from there.”

Backs Jamie Stanlake, Ben Saunders and Max Bullen claimed St Austell’s tries, one of which was converted.

With no game this week, Parsons says he hopes to use the enforced break as an opportunity to not only recharge the batteries somewhat, but also get some of his walking wounded, including the experienced Matt Shepherd, back for the clash against Exmouth.

He added: “We’re notoriously slow starters, but hopefully with this break we can address a few things and get ourselves up and running. Last season we had a period where we didn’t quite get the results, then all of a sudden we went on a run of 10, 11 games that really lifted us the table.

“I know we’ve got a good squad, I know the boys will come good, so we’ll just keep working hard.”

St Austell: A Bees; D Tyrrell, J Stanlake, B Plummer, M Pullen; B Saunders, A Middlewood; P Rowe, P Harris, C Nicholson; M Vian, H Bright; P Fletcher, C Taylor, A Tyndale-Powell. Replacements: R Raikes, K Michael, A Fletcher