SUPERMARINE coach Sean Millwaters believes that blooding his youngsters now will hold them in good stead for next term.

The South Marston side fell to their 15th consecutive defeat of the campaign last Saturday, losing 57-0 to Southern Counties South leaders Swanage and Wareham.

And while Millwaters accepts that his side are facing the drop after just one year in the division, he believes that the future is looking bright for Supermarine with the likes of centre Joe Lee and full-back Sean Rees getting a chance with the first team.

“At the moment, when the Colts don’t have league and cup matches, we are looking at our young players,” Millwaters said.

“We are planning for next season, we know that we are going down, so it is important that we start looking to the future.

“I think that it is a good thing that we give these young players an opportunity to play in a first team environment at this level.

“They are playing particularly well too so hopefully when we go into next season this year will have been a benefit to them.”

Despite planning for next term, Millwaters says that they still have targets to meet this term, and while they conceded 57 points without reply, the Marine chief was pleased with the performance.

“When we went down there earlier in the season we lost by more than 90 points so that is a 35-point turnaround,” Millwaters said. “The targets we have set at the moment is to concede fewer points than the previous fixture and we are doing that.

“Last February we asked the squad would they still be here this year, they said yes and that is the reason we accepted promotion.

“But come August-September we lost eight of the first team starters and we had to draft in players from our seconds and thirds. Had we known last February what we knew in August then we wouldn’t have gone up.”