Clydebank Rugby Club captain Ali Smart hopes his side can take the positives from the 36-15 quarter-final loss in the BT West Regional Shield on Saturday.

Despite the loss, there were positives to take, including the return of number eight David Warden who touched down twice for the Bank, with winger David Kirkwood also scoring at the John Brown pitches.

The Bank have been misfiring so far in the league, and sit seventh after four games, as they look to get their promotion challenge back on track.

Smart said: “It was our best performance of the season so far, we managed to score a few tries which we’ve lacked in the past couple of weeks, and it was good to start building up some points and getting some momentum into the next few games.

“We’ve started really poorly between injuries and absences, and we’ve not really managed to get ourselves going, but this is a chance to maybe kick on.

“We normally have a good set piece and it’s weird not being on the front foot with it.

“When we played Birkmyre it went to uncontested scrums and that stopped us from after half-time and it stopped us from doing anything really and against Cumbernauld we were always going backwards.

“We were missing our entire front row and they dominated us really, we couldn’t put any pressure on them and it really told and we weren’t able to score any points.”

Clydebank head to Ayr to face Millbrae on Saturday, who have won one game and lost two so far in the league.

The blindside flanker is hoping they can put on a solid performance for the whole game, rather than in limited spells.

He added: “We’re hoping to carry on the performance from this week.

“It was a much better performance and we need to carry that performance over 80 minutes, we played well in fits and starts but they really need to get a whole good game under us.”

The Clydebank 2XV also played against Garnock on Saturday, but lost 34-22.