ROCHFORD Hundred kicked off their London Two North East season with a 28-25 defeat to Diss at Magnolia Road.

An error strewn first half display saw Rochford 21-3 behind at half-time.

But they came close to turning things around in the second half and captain Matt Stewart feels valuable lessons will have been learnt.

“Our error count was too high in the first half and we gifted them three tries just by overplaying,” said Stewart.

“Maybe there was a bit of excitement as it was the first game of the season.

“But we had a chat among ourselves at half time and decided we should be a little more patient with our opportunities.

“That paid off and we were very unlucky not too sneak it at the end but I suppose it’s a lesson learned.”

However, despite the defeat, Stewart insists Rochford still hope to be promotion challengers this season.

“We would really like to push for promotion this year and there’s a lot of hunger for that in this year’s squad,” said Stewart.

“We have had a lot of changes within the club this year and hopefully we can start to attract more players to Rochford.

“Signing Nik Grier and Mark Billings and of course getting Luke Irvine back for another season was massive for us.

“It shows real intent as to where we want to be going.

“It’s also really nice to know all the lads are on the same page.”

Rochford will now be looking to bounce back at South Woodham Ferrers this weekend.

And they will be doing it playing a new brand of rugby.

“We changed our style of play during pre season and are still trying to adapt to it now to be honest,” said Stewart.

“We were all pretty confident that if we pulled off our plays we would have totally dominated Diss, especially at home.

“But hopefully we can do it against Woodham at the weekend now.”

Woodham’s match with Epping Upper Clapton was called off on Saturday after the referee deemed the pitch unplayable.

Elsewhere, Basildon kicked off their London Three North East campaign with a 31-7 defeat at home to Wanstead.

Stanford le Hope triumphed 22-10 at Kings Cross Steelers in Essex One A while Canvey Island were seen off 34-32 at Clacton.

Harry Atkins scored two tries for the Islanders.