Despite claiming back to back wins over St Augustine’s and Scots, Riverview first XV coach Anthony Cook said his side still has plenty to improve on in the remaining weeks of the 2021 preseason.

Iggies claimed their second big scalp in as many weeks on Saturday, defeating a talented Scots side at home.

“From the opening kick off we held on to quite a bit of possession and came away with two unconverted tries, but probably should have come away with a bit more considering all the ball we had at the right end of the field,” Cook told Rugby News.

“We probably lacked a bit of finesse and execution in attack because we’ve been spending most of our time working on our defence, which we were really happy with.

“We held Scots to nil in the first half and not many teams do that.”

Riverview conceded two tries against the run of play in the second half but responded with two of their own in the final 15 minutes to put the 31-12 result beyond doubt.

“I was happy with how we maintained possession, particularly in the first half. We were able to frustrate Scots a little bit by holding lots of ball and they ended up with a few yellow cards as a result.

“We were a little scratchy in the second half and that probably came down to fatigue but fortunately we’d done enough in the first half to get the result.”

Cook said Riverview will field one of their more experienced squads in recent years this season, with just two year 11 students starting against Scots on Saturday.

“We’re a more mature group this year with quite a bit of experience. Two of the boys are actually in their third season in the first XV and that helps a lot, especially when they’re in key positions.

“On the flip side, we’ve also got the exciting juniors pushing through and we had one year 10 boy play off the bench on Saturday.”

While Cook said he’s been pleased with his side’s performances so far this year, the coach said they’ll need to continue to improve each week, starting this weekend when they travel to play Kings.

“We’ve played three games so far and we’ve seen improvements in each of those games and that’s all you can really ask for at this stage of the year.

“We’ll learn a little bit more about ourselves this weekend when we play Kings, who are always tough.

“I’m not reading too much in to their scoreline from last weekend against Joeys. I know they’d been on camp all week and were missing some key players, so they’ll present a tough challenge.”

Riverview haven’t won a GPS premiership since 2011 and while Cook knows there is still a lot of rugby to be played this season, he seemed confident that his side would be in the mix in what he expects to be another tight competition.

“It’s schoolboy footy, so anything can and usually does happen. A team can be the dominant side through the trial period and then succumb to pressure during the season.

“It’s a funny one because you want to build confidence by winning your trials but you also want your boys to understand that it’s going to get tougher in the regular season.

“You don’t want to lose a game but you do want to be tested because we know that we’ll be tested throughout the season.

“It’s a cut throat competition and to win it, you’ve got to play five grand finals back to back and you can’t really afford a slip up.

“This season will be no different. There are some very good football teams and on their day pretty much anyone can beat anyone.”