Central Park club managed to pick up losing bonus point on Saturday and are happy with how their young squad is developing

Mark Collins felt lapses in concentration cost Dagenham on Saturday during their Essex League Division One Shield meeting with Harwich & Dovercourt.

The D’s started positively on home soil at Central Park, but were eventually beaten 53-26.

Dagenham’s director of rugby took plenty of positives from the encounter despite the final result.

“It was lapses of concentration that cost us in the end, but the first five to 10 minutes it was all us,” said Collins.

“The boys applied themselves well and it was the first time this year that we have been able to put the decoy runners in.

“We went 7-0 up and we were going great guns, but lost a player through injury and he was having a big impact.

“After that we missed a few tackles and you can’t put pressure on the line if you are going to miss two or three tackles.

“Harwich got back into the game because of that and for us it is something to learn from for next time.”

With the visitors second in the table, a tough battle was also anticipated and it proved to be the case.

But unlike in the previous two meetings earlier in the campaign, Dagenham failed to capitulate this time.

Collins was impressed with the effort of his squad after the restart and left him happy with their work.

He added: “To begin with it was lovely and Harwich have a big pack and a front five who are all huge.

“Our aim was to move them around as much as possible and we managed to do that really well.

“We were a bit unfortunate to end up 22-7 down at half time and in the previous two meetings we have capitulated after the restart.

“Myself and Paul Cook had a chat with the boys and although Harwich got a couple of early tries, we came back into it.

“We finished the game strongly and got the bonus point and had five 18-year-olds involved, so we are still sticking with our youth policy and I am very happy with the way things are going.”