Finsbury Park RFC will look to bounce back to winning way when they face Barnet Elizabethans after having their unbeaten run shattered by St Albans last weekend.

Coach Gareth Chapman and his side will welcome the Herts/Middlesex 1 strugglers to Downhills Park on Saturday as they look to remain top of the table.

They go into the match on the back of their first defeat this campaign as they fell short with a 22-17 defeat to St Albans.

Captain Evan Gwilliam feels they put in a good performance and should have won the match.

“It’s easy to say the other team wanted it more than us, but bare in mind they scored all their points while we had men in the bin.

“In my mind out there in the field we were far better, far stronger physically, far better scrum.

“Days like this are going to happen, we need to learn to win ugly, but aside from that the forwards muscled up, the defensively line was actually really good.

“Three tries a piece we should have won but we didn’t.”

While, coach Chapman feels they gifted St Albans an early lead, and that cost them coming away with the victory.

“We gifted them the lead in the first fifthteen minutes, we gave them a bit too much respect, and it’s backfired in the long run.

“I’m trying to get us a platform in the forwards to allow the back players to play as we have enough flare players.

“We only got that in the last 20 minutes and for the first hour we didn’t have that.”

The former player also admitted he side were probably too naïve after their impressive start to the campaign.

And he is now urging them to start showing up every week whoever their opponents may be.

“Attitude comes into it a bit, a few guys even said on the touch line you’ve got to want it.

“As soon as you turn up to these games, once you come across that white line everything changes, you’ve got no friends other than your team.”

Frazer Findlater added: “It was a bit of a mixed bag today, we came here thinking we were going to roll all over them and we just didn’t.”