IAN Morrison bagged his first try for Southend Saxons on Saturday but was unable to prevent a 33-17 defeat at Sutton & Epsom.

The setback was Southend’s third in succession as they slipped to ninth in the National Three London & SE standings.

And back row Morrison was left disappointed by Saxons’ failure to match their lively hosts.

“It was a tough game and they offered a huge amount of energy right from the start,” said Morrison.

“Unfortunately we couldn’t seem to build a foothold in the game and we were also naive around the breakdown.

“Our second half was an improvement, so we need to take the positives and move forward but of course it’s frustrating for us.

“We felt like we had built some momentum ahead of the Shelford game, winning three in a row, and we all felt we should have beaten Shelford too.

“But we’ll continue to work hard in training and be doing all we can to put things right in the future.”

Southend take on fourth placed Hertford this weekend before also facing Westcombe Park - who sit third - ahead of a meeting with local rivals Westcliff just before Christmas.

And Morrison is backing Southend to find their best form during the run of difficult fixtures.

“We have already highlighted the next set of games as a challenging period,” said Morrison.

“We go into every game believing we will win and as shown earlier in the season we are more than capable of doing so.

“We will look to try and find that consistency again but I don’t think there is any extra emphasis on the game this Saturday, just our usual expectations we always have of ourselves.”

Southend found themselves 20-0 down at the break but improved in the second half with Morrison, Daniel Legge and Potu Leavasa all scoring well taken tries.

Danny Cleare also added a conversion.

But Saxons will now be looking to bounce back in this Saturday’s tough looking clash against Hertford at Warners Bridge.

Southend Saxons: Cleare, Friswell, Walker, Watling, Wiltshire, Vaughan, Gould, Strachan, Bloomberg, Bailey, O’Kill, Leavasa, Shields, Morrison, Legge. Replacements: Forster-Knight, Smith & O’Brien