Thursday’s Practice Match

Sometimes things happen in football that make you think that it's going to be our year!!

We had a practice game on Thursday night. Nothing unusual with that you may say but it was the outcome and the reassurance for me that we have strength in depth!!

The first team was the same as what played against Daventry. Bringing Chris and Rob back in for Reece and Spyros. George Powell was late and Ryan Wharton was receiving treatment so both teams started with 10 to get us going. The first team didn't know what hit em!! The reserves pressed the life out of them and through Reece and Nick Azzopardi. The first team lads kept giving the ball away and the reserves made them pay!! They scored a couple and were worthy of the lead. Unfortunately Rob Nightingale had to go off with a tight hamstring so I put Nick Azzopardi on the right side midfield and we used a sub to replace Nick. The frustration from the first team was at it's highest and a break came. We had a chat. George and Ryan were now available so I put Ryan in the firsts and George in the reserves defence(his forfeit for being late!!)

The game was a lot more even and I decided to have 2 half hours rather than the three. My belief is get a quality hour in rather than drag a longer session on needlessly. I must add at this time our fitness coach Scott Taylor run the lads in-between the break!

Now my positive out of this is that there is still a lot of competition for places. The reserve lads carried their cracking form into Saturdays home game v Carshalton. Their play going forward was superb. Hopefully our first team lads will realise that however well they are doing and second place in the league is a great achievement so far they cannot rest on anything and carry their form on to stay in the team!

We have a busy period coming up and to see so much enthusiasm and positive attitude is great to witness. I feel we will need a strong squad to achieve what we want to this year. Obviously everyone wants to play but with everyone pushing each other, it bodes well for the season!

Cheers

SC