SWINDON College Old Boys boss Mark Lea bemoaned a poor defensive display with his side still are searching for their first win of their Southern Counties North campaign after going down 43-38 at home to Bicester.

College, who were suffering from a lack of numbers in the forwards, pulled out an 11-point advantage at one stage over their visitors but were unable to hang on.

Two late tries secured a second bonus point for College and Lea says his side will learn lessons from the defeat.

“It was a disappointing result and another game we should have won,” said the head coach.

“We are sat on two points from bonus points in the league but in my view we should have two wins and nine points under our belts.

“Something we were strong on last year was our aggressive, in-your-face defence - for some odd reason on Saturday there was a lack of line speed and many missed tackles, which cost us the game.

“We have suffered badly from unavailability. Our squad is bigger but it’s not big enough to cope with such change and key positions missing.

“I was left frustrated. In the last 15 minutes we woke up but it was too late - it did mean we scored two tries and a got two bonus points - but we need to play like this for longer periods.

“We had better individuals but Bicester played better as a team, a lesson for our guys in the need to play as a unit before showing that individual spark.”

College prepare for a trip to Bletchley next weekend, who have also failed to get a win from their opening two games, and Lea will be putting his defence through their paces.

He said: “Defence is something College are known for, but we will be running drills to tighten things up and improve our line speed to take ground away from the opposition.”