Plymouth Albion chairman of rugby Graham Dawe hopes supporters will not write his team off after just one game.

A weakened Albion were crushed 51-3 at Bedford Blues on the opening day of the Championship season. It was Albion's biggest defeat since they lost 55-6 at Rotherham in February 2003, with a team that included current Premiership players Dan Ward- Smith, Andy Perry, Will James and Olly Kohn.

Albion, who have had to start the new season without Kieran Hallett, Alex Davies, Keni Fisilau and Martin Rice, now have to pick themselves up to face Worcester at Brickfields on Saturday.

"It was not the ideal way to start the season," Dawe said. "But you have to try to stay positive. Bedford are a tough side, especially when the sun is shinning, and they played very, very well."

Dawe, who saw Bedford score two tries while Ruairi Cushion was in the sin-bin early in the second half, added: "I know the players are aiming to stay positive.

"They did some good stuff on Saturday, but, obviously, they will be under pressure next week because of this scoreline. We are just hoping the players will respond in the right way."

When asked if he was worried people would write his team off after such a heavy loss, Dawe said: "Everybody has got a right to form their own opinion, but I am really, really positive about this squad. I think we can do some good things this year."

Playing Bedford away was always going to be a tough ask for Albion on the opening day without the experienced Rice and Fisilau, who are both injured. But their task got even harder when they were unable to field a specialist fly-half. Kieran Hallett was ruled out after suffering a rare infection in his foot that left him on crutches needing hospital treatment.

To make matters worse, Albion had to pull Alex Davies out of the side due to a problem with his registration.

Davies had spent the summer playing for New Zealand side Green Island and needed international clearance to play again in England, but that did not arrive in time for last Saturday's game.

"His clearance did not come through in time," said Dawe. "We were pretty confident we were going to get it this week. He was selected because we thought it would come through.

"We did not expect it to be held up and hopefully we can get it sorted this week.

"But I thought Mark Lee did a great job coming in at ten and Sione [Tu'ipulotu] worked his socks off and did well at 15."

Lee had been due to start at full-back with Tu'ipulotu at 12. Instead Albion went with a new centre partnership of trialists Fionn McLoughlin and Cameron Mitchell. Also making their league debuts were winger Johnny Coleman, hooker Gavin O'meara and No.8 Aaron Carpenter.

"The new guys acquitted themselves well," said Dawe. "With the switch around there was another new player in the team in Fionn, and that is always a hard experience."