Young guns will shine

Sep 3 2008 By Mark Bengoe, Surrey Herald

MIKE SCHMID is backing his Esher young guns to shrug off the Exeter drubbing in Saturday's clash at National One new-boys Otley.

Esher suffered a 46-8 home thrashing in last weekend's league curtain-raiser at Molesey Park.

But director of rugby Schmid insists confidence is still high and says he took plenty of positives out of the match.

He said: "I'm confident we will be able to put some good performances together this season.

"It is a young team in both age and experience but there was a lot that excited me against Exeter.

"We showed some great attacking flair in the first half but two mistakes cost us two tries. I was also pleased with the passion and commitment."

Esher, boasting nine players aged 25 or under, were unlucky to trail 15-0 at the break - but the sinbinning of prop Colm Hannon proved the turning point.

Exeter were handed a penalty try and three more quickly followed as the West Country side under-lined their title credentials.

Schmid said: "We gave away a few soft tries after the break and there's no doubt we have to be mentally tougher.

"Most of their tries came from our mistakes and we missed too many one-on-one tackles.

"But there is a lot of belief in the side and we can go places. Every week will see us getting better and better."

Schmid expects a stern test from Otley, who went down 36-15 at Doncaster in their opener.

He added: "I expect they will have a good pack of forwards and it will be a tough game.

"I will be looking for us to play a fast game and run them off their feet.

"Our scrummaging was excellent for 50 minutes against Exeter, and we can build on that.

"Our lineout also functioned reasonably well while some of our backs play was outstanding.

"But we must learn to be more patient if we are to create tries. We'll definitely get better."

Esher lost the services of Wasps scrum-half Joe Simpson the night before the Exeter game when he was withdrawn by the Premiership club due to injuries. But former Italy centre Matteo Barbini could come into contention at Otley after showing no ill-effects from an ankle injury in the Second XV's 55-10 win at Sutton and Epsom.