Hibs (Clive Hibbert) and Stuart Green gave a performance that installed great confidence in the rest of the players and indeed myself, whilst, Presto (Paul Preston) and Dave Wing gave a steady performance to suggest that they wouldn't be out of there depth in the Wessex League. The other 'new comer' so to speak Ian Linney was my highlight. I thought he showed great experience in midfield and gave us good shape and stability. On the whole I still think a point would have been a fair result, they were a good side though and we didn't let ourselves down.

With regards to the Romsey Town game midweek, I went in at halftime very disappointed. We worked hard all pre-season on certain things only for them to go out the window in that first half. Our touch was poor, our shape wasn't fantastic and individually some players were just not performing how we they should have done. We welcomed Matty Rayner back for this game and to be honest the first half just passed him by, maybe the expectation we have for Matty and indeed his own expectations are so high that every now and again levels will dip? It happens in the Premiership so why not in the Wessex? I had to give a fairly excited half time team talk to get them going and in the second half we gave a much healthier performance. As for Matty, he was a different player and gave a great 45 minutes, in fact, it was his free kick that got us the point. Romsey Town game? Expected more... disappointed with the performance but pleasing to finally get a point on the board.

This weekend gave us a small break from the league and our first of two trips in a week to the Isle Of Wight to face Cowes in the FA Cup. As you know we lost the game 4-3 and are now out. Very disappointing to be honest. We were well in the game in the opening 30 minutes and to give them two goals in as many minutes was just suicidal. Tigs scored a carbon copy of Matty's free kick in midweek to take us in 2-1 down at half time and give us a real lift. We were happy to get the goal we needed and bring them back to the Bass Sports Ground for a replay. However, with some awful defending and for the last goal some awful refereeing and assistance from his colleague we faced being dumped out of the Cup on the end of a hiding. The strange thing is that we believe if you away to Cowes and score three times, you would expect to get a result. We at least salvaged a little pride by taking them all the way to the end with John Gray scoring two good goals. For me, John has been our outstanding player in the opening week and others need to raise the game to where he is. This being said John (if your reading this) you need to keep these high levels going!

So in summary Clive and I are both a little disappointed and probably would have expected from the opening week at least three league points and an FA Cup replay this Tuesday.''