Veteran spinner Dwayne (Sluggo) Leverock is adamant Southampton Rangers will recover from their shock 13-run defeat in the Belco Cup against underdogs PHC.

Rangers were gunning for their seventh Belco title at Lords on Sunday but came unstuck against a resilient PHC who stunned the defending champions to lift the first piece of silverware of the season.

Leverock, who scored 22 and took one wicket for 55 runs, criticised Rangers' poor fielding and believed they had paid the price for affording PHC too many extras.

"It was a good game and it went down to the wire," said the former Bermuda World Cup star.

"In the field we gave them too many extras and enabled them to post a half decent total.

"The wicket was good, there was nothing devious in the wicket, it's just that in the field we looked flat and that cost us."

Rangers had been cruising towards PHC's total of 243 at 179 for four with Leverock and hard-hitting Janeiro Tucker at the wicket.

But the new ball changed the game with seamer Kevin Tucker making the breakthrough by removing Leverock to spark a mini collapse.

Leverock admitted the surprise loss had been a bitter pill to swallow but was confident Rangers would be challenging for their seventh Belco title next summer.

"We wanted to win the trophy again and now we'll just have to make sure we finish in the top four and be part of the 2011 Belco Cup," he said.

"There have been a lot of positives and we have a number of good young players coming through, so it bodes well for the season.

"Plus, we were missing Ryan Belboda and Jason Simons, who has transferred from Cleveland."