BASINGSTOKE RFC suffered a 37-31 defeat at Guildford, in what was their opening away fixture in London One South.

The home side made the most of early penalties and scored a converted try after five minutes.

The visitors then lost Rudi Kochanowski to a yellow card as Guildford tried a rolling maul.

However, ’Stoke were the next to score from new signing Ben Stewart and Ryan Trevaskis kicked the conversion.

After this, the home side took control and scored two converted tries, one from rolling maul and then a penalty as they built up a 24-7 lead at half-time.

Eight minutes after the re-start, Guildford added another five points, which was the bonus point try.

Basingstoke hit back with own score, from Matt Guilfoyle, who missed ’Stoke opening day victory, which made it 29-12.

Just before the hour mark, Guildford added a penalty, but from then on the visitors had the better of the game.

For the second week running, Jobi Kochanowski scored a try, which was converted on 72 minutes.

Guildford scored their last points of the game, with an unconverted try, to make it 37-19 and it was lucky they had this lead.

In the final minute, full-back Trevaskis scored and kicked over the extras and straight from the kick-off Kochanowski scored again for the bonus point try.

With Guildford on the back foot ’Stoke were unable to grab another try, but took the losing bonus point from the game, as the final score was 37-31, which leaves them seventh in the table.

This Saturday, Basingstoke are back in action at Down Grange, when Cobham narrow winners over Sutton and Epsom this weekend are the visitors.