Ipswich feel right at home in London 1 North, despite opening day defeat at Letchworth

Defeat in their opening game may have been a bitter pill to swallow, but Ipswich coach Lee Parry insists his newly-promoted team have nothing to fear in London 1 North.

Individual mistakes were the main contributors to a 34-10 defeat at Letchworth but Parry revealed his squad were upbeat and will revel playing at a better level.

“It sounds weird but, as a club, we are probably happy,” said Parry, who suffered an elbow injury in Saturday’s defeat.

“We could have won the game and we all know the areas we have to work on. We should not have any worries and everyone is really upbeat.”

Ipswich, who accrued 100 points on their way to winning last season’s London 2 title, took an early lead through Carlton Littlechild’s converted try but Letchworth led 20-7 at the break, and eventually increased their advantage again, in between Alan Barker’s penalty for the visitors.

Despite defeat, there were positive performances from scrum-half Charlie Craig, while Alex Zahid, Adam Sawyer and Acton attacked the ball with venom.

“It is a league where if you make a mistake, you are more likely to be punished,” added Parry.

“But I am almost certain that every single player left the field knowing they were not out of their depth and, although we lost, the players enjoyed the challenge.

“Last year we were almost at the point where we could throw the ball to a team-mate and we could run through to score a try. Not every game was like that but there was many.

“On Saturday we scored one very good try, could have scored another two, and there was a feeling of reward when we did score.”