Bournemouth Director Of Rugby Will Croker pinpointed a lack of composure for their first South West Premier defeat of the season.
The Lions failed to roar in their 28-16 away reverse at fourth placed Maidenhead, but Croker admitted it will not take much to pick his troops up.
Croker’s men next welcome bottom-but-one Newton Abbot to Chapel Gate on Saturday, and he is expecting a big backlash from his team.
He said: “I don’t think we need to do too much to pick the guys up now - we have to expect that when we come to these places that this is what we are going to have to face.
“One of their coaching staff said to me ten minutes into the second half that you can tell that the best team in the league has come to town because this is the best we have played by an absolute country mile and fair play to them they were excellent today.
“We showed enough with the ball in hand in the second half to score tries but we lost our composure a little bit so I don’t think we will really need to pick the players up because they will know that.
“The players are hurting - and are really sore about the whole thing.
“I think next week they will want to come back and do themselves justice against Newton Abbot.”
Despite eventually falling to their first loss of the season, there were still plenty of positives to take and learn from for Croker.
The Bournemouth lineout in particular was excellent and provided the team with a great platform from which to build upon.
But Croker said in the second period, his side’s set-piece fell apart which gave the opposition the impetus to then take advantage - which they did.
Croker added: “I was over the moon with our lineout in the first half, but in the second half it fell to pieces and it was a real frustration because it had been so strong and the rolling maul had been going so well and we were able to keep so many of their forwards in the tight areas, because we were mauling which meant that the backs had more space.
“But in the second half when it started to go a little bit awry their lineout came flooding into our backfield and yes it had its’ positives but it all just comes down to composure and that old saying about ‘the top two inches’ and we have just got to make sure that when the heat comes that we are ready to expect it and we are able to deal with it.”