Same last season bit worrying i agree.

County Exile wrote:Finished 1-1

Thanks for the updates Rob.

Countymadbell wrote:Same last season bit worrying i agree.

Bit worrying? If we start this season like we did last with 5 wins and a draw from our opening seven games I’ll be a happy man.

somerton moss wrote:Another great test for our trialists. These friendlies worry me being undercooked against Mansfield. Even raw.

Correct me if I am wrong, but, my understanding is that against the likes of Undy, Caerleon and Bath we put out teams dominated by trialists. The closest we came to a proper team was against Al (someone or other in Spain) and Shrewsbury where we did rather well in both games. That'll do for me, ticking over nicely.

I probably say this every summer, but the year we had the most ambitious set of pre-season friendlies was under Anthony Hudson when we had Stoke and Bolton at Spytty (both in the Premier at that time), plus Cheltenham then in L2 plus Real Betis arranged at a couple of days' notice.

We then took something like seven points from the first dozen games.

George Street-Bridge wrote:I probably say this every summer, but the year we had the most ambitious set of pre-season friendlies was under Anthony Hudson when we had Stoke and Bolton at Spytty (both in the Premier at that time), plus Cheltenham then in L2 plus Real Betis arranged at a couple of days' notice.

We then took something like seven points from the first dozen games.

I agree. I have never seen in 53 seasons any correlation between pre season and league form. As a pre-teen child I remember a game v then 1st Division Burnley. We drew 1-1. I couldn't believe it. We were going to destroy Division 4 on that performance.

I was very young.

Don't forget, our players only had a month off this year. I'm not sure how much sharpness you lose in a month, not that much is my guess. So long as we have a couple more matches with our first choice 11 out I think we'll be fine come opening day.