SOUTHEND Saxons hooker Adam Ferrier is still confident his side can finish up towards the top of the National Two South table, despite starting their season with a 36-31 defeat to Redruth at Warners Bridge.

Ferrier was among the try scorers for the Saxons as they fought back from 22-9 down to lead 28-22 in the final 10 minutes of the match.

But Redruth hit back to come out on top and leave Ferrier frustrated at the final whistle.

“It was disappointing to lose when we have so much more to give,” said the 26-year-old.

“We weren’t good with ball in hand and keeping possession and everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong.”

However, Ferrier was also keen to point at the positives from the game.

And he urged the Saxons to learn lessons from the setback.

“The biggest positive we can take from the game is that Redruth didn’t break us down at all physically and we gave them all their points with silly errors on our behalf,” said Ferrier.

“Once we iron those creases out we will be a very hard team to beat and I believe we can finish this year at the top end of the table which ultimately is our number one goal as a squad.

“Bouncing back against Shelford will also happen this weekend because we are going to be finishing top of the league this season and everyone is behind that vision.”

Sam Nash and Chris Vaughan also touched down for the Saxons while fly-half Brad Burr kicked two conversions and four penalties.

But that was ultimately not enough for the Saxons to come out on top.

And their director of rugby Chris Green is demanding that lessons are learnt from the defeat.

“We shot ourselves in the foot to be honest,” said Green.

“We showed really good character to come back from a slow start and it was disappointing that we weren’t able to hold on to the lead late on.

“If we can learn from what went wrong and the errors that we made then we’ll be OK but we will need to learn quickly.”

But the Saxons, who are already missing winger Danny Cleare, back row Sam Fombo and hooker Marcus Bloomberg with injuries, suffered another huge blow on Saturday with the influential Daniel Legge suffering a dislocated shoulder.

Southend: Ashton, Driver, Nash, Vaughan, Billings, Burr, Branch, Strachan, Ferrier, Bevans-Royston, Legge, Chesney, Jackson, Kellard, Hudson.

Replacements: Day-White, Douglas, Scupham, Pollard & Farrell