SWINDON Storm player-coach Steve Bennett has admitted there are lessons to learn after they opened up their campaign with a 16-7 defeat at home to Cornwall Sharks.

The Sharks delivered an early bite as they were held up two yards short on the first drive of the game before going over wide on the left, but the conversion was missed.

Swindon were back in the tie when their quarter-back Greg Roscow ran for a 15-yard score but a second first half touchdown from the visitors gave them a 13-7 lead at the break.

A field goal attempt, with the aid of the wind, for the Sharks was the only score in the second half as Swindon opened their campaign with a defeat.

“Cornwall really turned up to play hard,” said Bennett.

“When we played them last year we were very much on form and I think looking back we haven’t trained enough in full kit and full contact.

“That maybe was one of the reason why, when Cornwall turned up having trained a lot on grass, they put the hammer down on us early on and were able to move the ball effectively.

“A couple of 2015 intake players really stood out, a couple of the guys really delivered even though they are only in their first year.

“The special teams unit were of particular note.

“Defensively we rotated a lot of people around, just to give them the time on the field and the experience.

“Really we need to go to work on the offence and get those guys working together and pick up the tempo.

“It is something that we will get a lot slicker on as the season progresses and hopefully we will pick up our mojo a little bit more in the next couple of games.”

Bennett now has two weeks to analyse the match video and prepare his side for a trip to Torbay and will be looking to get more time training on the grass, after a pre-season of practice on an astro-turf surface.

“As always there were a lot of positives to take from the game and everything is a learning experience.

“We have got video of the game, using our special online video resource, where we can break it down and analyse all of the game.

“It ended up being caught on five different videos so we have a massive bank of video to look at and work on what we did.

“We’ll put that into training next week and prepare for Torbay Trojans away on April 26 and we’ll be getting some video on them and putting together a game plan.”