Kirkcaldy rugby: errors cost us dearly says Blues boss Quintan Sanft

Two second half Dayle Turner tries – the second of which was converted by Finlay Smith – gained the only points for the Blues on a day which saw Peter Wright’s Lasswade visitors romp home thanks to tries by Grant Innes, Matt Smith (2), Graeme Cook, Dale Robertson, Mark Wilson, plus five conversions and a penalty by Smith.

Kirkcaldy had gone into the Beveridge Park game with confidence, having recorded a comprehensive 38-17 victory over the same opponents in a league fixture on April 1, towards the tail end of last season.

“We made uncharacteristic mistakes on Saturday and it just cost us really,” gutted Blues boss Sanft told the Fife Free Press. “Mistakes that never happened through our pre-season games.

"I don’t know whether it was nerves in our first league game or guys were thinking about the result we had last year when we played Lasswade and had a convincing win.

"Some of our guys just didn’t turn up on the day.

"I think it was more to do with attitude rather than application, because – apart from two or three players – the squad is pretty much the same.

"We played all right in patches but Lasswade capitalised on some of the mistakes we made on the day and scored tries.

"The league is different now. A team like Lasswade, we beat them last year at home and got a few points.

"It doesn’t mean that the same result is going to happen again this year.

"All these teams review tapes from last year and prepare accordingly. We can’t take anyone lightly now.

"It’s probably a good thing that we are playing Gordonians this weekend and they’ve moved up a league.

"So no-one can revert back to last year and think: ‘We did something against them then’.

"It’s a totally different game so we need to buck up, especially playing away from home as well because it makes it even harder.”

When asked if Lasswade played markedly better under ex-GHK head coach Wright, 55, who won 21 playing caps for his country and also toured New Zealand with the British and Irish Lions in 1993, 46-year-old former Western Samoa international player Sanft added: “Not necessarily. I guess we made a lot of mistakes for some odd reason which crept into this game. I couldn’t put my finger on why.

"Lasswade – like us – have a very similar squad to last season.

"I was frustrated with the day because a lot of my boys have played in this league for a while now.”

Sanft doesn’t expect to change his starting XV much for the Gordonians match.

He said: “It will be a very similar squad. The problem for us is that we only have one team now, we don’t have a seconds team, so we are picking from the same pool all the time.”