George Cannonier, the St David’s coach, shrugged off the newly crowned Premier Division champions’ first league loss of the season against Southampton Rangers at Southampton Oval yesterday.

The Islanders clinched a second straight league title seven days earlier, but saw their unblemished league record halted after losing by 43-runs to hosts Rangers.

St David’s made three changes to their squad from the one that beat Western Stars the previous weekend, with key trio Allan Douglas, Delyone Borden and George O’Brien all making way for youngsters.

“This doesn’t put a damper on anything because it gave me a chance to showcase some of my youngsters,” Cannonier said.

“We have to look to the future and we gave them a chance to play today. We left out some of our key players and we lost.

“But I have to give credit to all of the players for helping us to win the league because they really wanted to win it and they achieved it.”

St David’s won the T20 championship at the beginning of the season and then retained their league title with two games to spare.

However, Cannonier admits being dethroned as Eastern Counties champions after losing to Bailey’s Bay in the first round was a bitter pill to swallow.

“Our objective was to win everything,” he said. “We started off good winning the T20 and then the next hurdle was the Eastern Counties, which I thought probably would not be that difficult to defend. But things happened on the day and it seemed like we were meant to lose.

“We had goals to achieve and went about it but I think when we lost the counties it set us back a bit and thankfully by then we had already established ourselves in the league.

“I regard the league as a tournament and I know in tournaments you have to get a good start - and we did.”

For the second straight year St David’s won the league title without captain OJ Pitcher.

Pitcher’s season was cut short last season through a bike accident while this year he has been sidelined through health reasons after collapsing during last month’s Eastern Counties first-round match against Bay at Lord’s.

He is under strict doctor’s orders “not to do anything strenuous” while he awaits the results of tests to determine the reason for his collapse.

“Losing OJ was a big disappointment,” Cannonier said. “On that day when I went out and saw the shape OJ was in I knew he wasn’t going to be able to bat and it was nothing we could do.”

Meanwhile, guiding Rangers to victory was captain Janeiro Tucker who blasted a century and Vernon Eve, the left-arm spinner, who bagged three wickets to lead the hosts’ bowling attack.

Rangers were in trouble at 39 for three after electing to bat before Tucker led a fightback.

Promoted to No 4, Tucker hammered 111 from 175 balls and along with Ricardo Brangman, the wicketkeeper-batsman, added 108-runs for the seventh wicket.

Tucker thumped 11 boundaries and four sixes, reaching his fifty off 72 balls and his century off a further 63.

Brangman chipped in with 35 and Kwame Tucker 26 as Rangers were dismissed for 228.

Kevin Hurdle and Rudell Pitcher claimed three wickets each while former Rangers player Dion Stovell, who claimed the prized wicket of Tucker, took two.

St David’s were comfortably poised at 175 for five in reply before suffering a massive collapse that saw their remaining wickets fall for just 11 runs.

Batting at No 3, Chris Douglas led the visitors’ run chase with 56 despite being dropped twice. He struck eight boundaries and a six and reached his fifty off 33 balls.

Opener Shannon Rayner, another former Rangers player, scored 34 and Stovell 32.

Eve took three 19 that included a wicket-maiden.

Dean Stephens, who also claimed a wicket-maiden, Tayo Smith and Donte Wellman snatched two wickets each as St David’s were dismissed for 185 in 34.2 overs.