SWINDON St George head coach Ben Whinchup says his side have only themselves to blame after surrendering their unbeaten start to the season with a shock 26-10 defeat at home to Southampton Spitfires on Saturday.

St George had opened the campaign with back-to-back away wins but the loss to previously winless Spitfires at Supermarine sees them lose ground again on Cheltenham Phoenix at the top of the West of England Pool Two table.

“It was very frustrating, especially in the manner that we lost. We just didn’t really get going in the game,” said Whinchup.

“I think a little bit of complacency crept in. We never expected to start the season as well as he have done and it was just a case of maybe overconfidence coming into our game a bit.

“We have to work on our attack threat as we just didn’t pose Southampton enough problems. We lacked a bit of quality when we had the ball in good positions.”

St George headed out full of confidence following last weekend’s win at leaders Cheltenham and were camped out on the Spitfires’ line from the kick-off. It took just seven minutes for Matt Dickens to open the scoring, crossing the try-line before Connor Tomley added the extras.

Southampton gave themselves a lifeline on the half-hour mark with a converted try of their own and then crossed over again five minutes later.

The home side got back into the game just before half-time when a high cross kick was well finished by Tomley, although he could not add the conversion as Swindon headed to the changing rooms 12-10 in arrears.

The second half was a dour affair, with indiscipline eating into Swindon’s performance. Although their attacks were stunted, they were able to hold firm in defence until the hour mark but Southampton soon took advantage of St George’s tiring legs to run in three unanswered tries.

Whincup added: “Our defence was very good for the majority of the game. We were very hard to break down and it was just on a couple of occasions at the end where, on the scoreboard, it looks like the game got away from us.”

St George’s development side were also in action and recorded a 36-16 success against Gloucestershire Warriors, extracting revenge for last week’s away defeat at the hands of the same opposition.