St Stithians first team rugby coach Thoriso Shihau was honest and blunt in his assessment after his side squeezed past King David Linksfield in what proved to be a tighter contest than many may have expected.

Shihau was not in the mood to celebrate. Despite taking the win, he felt his players had left far too much on the table, and that avoidable mistakes had given their opponents a way back into the match. “Not the greatest. I don’t think we played to our full potential. We kept them in the game. We didn’t take our options. Games like these, if you don’t take your options, you make it close.”

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With the next fixture on the horizon the following Saturday, Shihau said there was no time to dwell on the disappointment, and that the focus had to shift quickly. “The beauty about rugby is that we’ve got an opportunity to fix it on Saturday. Yes, they are not happy. Yes, I’m not happy, but we move on. We can’t change the score.”

On the other side of the result, King David Linksfield director of sport and first team coach David Joran could not hide his pride. For a school that fields only around five rugby teams, going toe-to-toe with a programme as established as St Stithians for the better part of 70 minutes was no small feat. “We’re a small rugby school and to come up against Saints, who are giants to us, and be competitive for 70 minutes, a few small errors and we could have won the game. I thought the boys really put their best foot forward and showed incredible heart and resilience.”

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For Joran, moments like these are precisely the point. Exposing his players to the highest level of school rugby they can find is central to how he is building the programme, and he believes the performance showed the direction King David are heading. “This is the trajectory we’re trying to get to, playing against high calibre schools and making sure that our boys get exposure to this level.”

When asked how he prepares a young squad to face a school of St Stithians’ standing without nerves getting the better of them, Joran kept his answer simple. He said it all comes down to self-belief and making sure his players remember why they play the game. “All teams are built in character and within themselves and I think it’s just self-belief. Belief is first and foremost. They’re playing the game that they love and they don’t need to take themselves too seriously. It’s still a school sport at the end of the day, but also an opportunity for them to really showcase their talent.”

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