By Twm Owen
Spirits remain high in the South Wales Warriors squad as they begin their return schedule – despite not yet registering a win this season.

The Warriors have now played all of their divisional rivals and on Saturday evening (6pm) travel to Brighton to take on British American Football Association (BAFA) Southern Conference Division One Central leaders the Sussex Thunder for the second time in three weeks.

Thunder head coach Ian Ellis said the Warriors had given his three-and-0 Thunder their toughest test of the season in their 14-0 victory in South Wales.

The Thunder enjoyed a bye last week while the Warriors began their away schedule with a 20-0 defeat at the Solent Thrashers.

Defeat means the Warriors, who opted to drop down to the second tier from the Premiership (South), are now propping up the five team table.

But head coach Geraint Roberts said there are still reasons for the Warriors – who recruited more than 20 rookies during the off-season – to remain confident, even if they’ve ultimately fallen short in all of their games.

“Considering we’re in the process of a rebuilding period, after a large turnover of players over the off-season, I think we’ve been competitive – although we have still yet to really perform as we know we can,” said Roberts of their opening four defeats.

“The main positive is that we’ve managed to stay with the experienced teams in our division, while also blooding new players into the team. Some hadn’t played any competitive football until this year. Although we’ve yet to win we’ve been close, so spirits are still high in the club.”

The Warriors have conceded 61 points in those four games and scored 26, but Sunday was the first time they had failed to score, hitting their points difference considerably.

In their home fixture against the Thunder, the Warriors gave up a touchdown in the first and second quarters. Visiting coach Ellis felt those early scores swung the advantage in his side’s favour as the home team were forced to take to the air rather than stick with their favoured running game.

His defense enjoyed themselves picking off Warriors quarterbacks Max Ayoul and Dean Jackson three times before allowing the Warriors their solitary score in the final minutes.

But the attack failed to pick up where they had left off in Sunday’s game in Southampton and were shut out for the first time this season by the Thrashers.

Roberts felt the score line hadn’t properly reflected the game but knows on Saturday injuries and unavailability will again hit the team for another long road trip.

And Roberts, who has remained upbeat during his team’s tough start to the season, is hopeful his players will soon start reaping the rewards of the tough lessons learned.

“We were disappointed with the result on Sunday there were still positives to come from it, and lots of lessons learnt for improving the team moving forward. The score line didn’t do us justice.

“We know what to expect from Sussex, but the question of if we can stop it remains. We’ll be travelling to Brighton with another depleted squad but the guys will represent themselves well and you never know, we may get the right result.”