Well, that was unexpected. In case you missed the game, we were rather shapeless today, and although there is the excuse we fielded a team of players that don't normally play together, that has been the same situation in our other pre-season games too, but it didn't have the negative outcome that today's game had. I looked forward to Rod's interview to see what he made of it all, and he is very honest about today's performance.

But there are compensations, we weren't fielding our full likely starting team, and credit to Cray Valley, this is the third time I've seen them play, and they have improved so much, they won promotion last season, kept that squad together, now just one division below us, so good luck to them in the coming season, and hopefully another promotion, as they have a great pitch and are one of my favourite away grounds, not just because I live in Eltham! Their first was a great strike, their second was sloppy defending from us not clearing a ball that they took advantage of. So a very good and settled side against a team still being assembled, the outcome isn't a total shock, and turns the spotlight on the individual players, "ok, what exactly are you contributing?" as some I've never seen it, and still don't. This was our sixth pre-season friendly, so the players have had lots of time to show their abilities, and there are a few who it is hard to think we couldn't improve on, and clearly Rod thinks that too. Number 17 triallist was very good, 16 triallist also sound.

But it is a sign of how good a player and a team are in how they respond to things going wrong, so Rod will learn a lot about his players about how they respond to this. Ebbsfleet and Sutton coming up are challenges, so really interesting to see how we respond. But overall we have been doing well in our 6 psfs, scored 15 goals, conceded 8, so sound with shooting accuracy and defence, and even in a bad game today today we created lots of clear chances, just didnt have the usual accuracy today.