Helensburgh Rugby’s head coach Adam Hart was disappointed with his side’s sluggish start after losing 51-25 to Annan on Saturday at Ardencaple.

The Grizzlies were 30-10 down at half-time and it wasn’t until the last 20 minutes of the game that the home side began to dominate their opposition.

And Hart put that down to lack of training time together as a team over the season.

He said: “As an attacking performance it was a much better performance, we made the right decisions at the right times and for the last 15 to 20 minutes we dominated them and we looked the most threatening at that time.

“It also shows that it took 60 minutes for the players to start gelling together which shouldn’t be, they should be training together.

“If we put that performance over the 80 minutes we could have got a better result but that’s the result of people not training together.

“Lack of cohesiveness, it’s not a majority but it’s the areas where there are partnerships that are needed, so it’s developing some of those partnerships.

“You might get some of them turning up on a Tuesday or some on the Thursday or some not at all, whereas if you get them all consistently then we’ll be able to build.”

A positive to take out of the game on Saturday was the performance of Ally Rogers, who was playing at flanker and received high praise from the head coach.

Hart added: “I’m surprised they’re (Annan) not higher up the league. Once they got their game going they’re probably the best side we’ve played this season and when they had the ball and were able to use it when they wanted.

“But we still turned over a lot of the ball, especially Ally Rogers who got awarded man of the match down to his work effort and work-rate and the number of breakdowns he reached and the tackles he made, he played the referee brilliantly at the breakdown and was winning a lot of turnovers.”

The Burgh now turn their attention to high flyers Carrick, in what will be their last game of the season at home this season.

Helensburgh ran them close, losing 43-31 in October. The head coach said: “We gave them a close game and they had to win it in the last 10 minutes as we were ahead up until that point so it should be a good game. It’s our last home game of the season and Carrick’s last game of the season.”

Kick-off at Ardencaple is 2pm on Saturday