Jamie Baum, who captained Bermuda rugby’s Select XV in the friendly match against Dartmouth College, is grateful for the competition.

Dartmouth won the encounter at the National Sports Centre’s North Field 14-10 on Monday night to bring an end their tour of Bermuda, with Carr Urschel and Jamie Leslie scoring their tries and Marco Landicino converting.

The US college had initially come to the island for the Bermuda International Sevens, a tournament in which they finished second, but decided to add a 15-a-side match against the best local players on island to end the tour.

Baum was one of the try scorers for Bermuda, with the other five points coming from Wendell Anderson, and feels the match came at the right time to assist the national team in their preparations for upcoming international assignments, which include home games against Cayman Islands and Bahamas in May and a trip to Jamaica in June.

“Given the small playing pool on the island, it’s always great to play against different opposition,’’ Baum said.

“Dartmouth gave us a really tight, physical game which I know the boys all really appreciate, as we head into our international fixtures in May and June.

“We should have won against Dartmouth but we had too many dropped balls near the try line.”

Bermuda coach Chris Naylor welcomed the chance to take on different competition with the number of players on island limited.

“It was good for us to have some competition,’’ Naylor said. “It wasn't a full national team but it was very close and a lot of the boys being considered for selection were in the team.

“We got off to a terrible start and conceded two tries in the first few minutes, but then after that it was an even game.

“With quite a strong wind in the first half in our faces, we didn't play particularly well. We were pinned back a little bit, but we got back into the game.

“Loose passes let us down at times but two strong tries in the second half put us back in it. A lot of the boys were battered and bruised, as were the opposition too, because of the sevens tournament.

“There was generally some encouraging stuff as we step towards our Caribbean Championship programme coming up in May.

“This was a good little preparation initially to get the boys together. Clearly, there is plenty to work on, but there is some encouraging stuff too.”

Dominic Wareing, the Dartmouth coach, was pleased with the way his team concluded their visit to the island.

“It was a fun way for our players to wrap up the tour to Bermuda by playing against good local competition,’’ he said.

“It was also nice to experience the warm hospitality of the island and of course it's always nice to win too.’’