Hard Lesson To Start With

A lovely morning for the first league match of the season, at home against Fleet Spurs - a team Hook have played a number of times over the years with some reasonable results.

The match started well enough, decent in possession but not quite breaking the deadlock despite a few chances. The main areas to improve was the desire to want the ball - too many times a Hook player pulled up early when chasing the ball, rather than put the opposition under pressure.

The momentum was predominantly with Hook throughout the first half but the score was 1-1 at the break, when they arguably deserved more.

The second half was likely to hinge on "whoever scored the next goal would likely run away with it"... and that's what Fleet did. Too many times Hook waited for the ball to come to them, waited for the ball to drop to see what happened, and waited to see what Fleet would do, rather than fight for the ball, want the ball, and make things happen.

There was some lovely football played, and very effective quick-touch football, that showed that Hook were always going to be competitive. Unfortunately, there was a real lack in front of goal.

Ultimately, a handful of gifted goals in the second half saw Fleet run out 5-1 winners and Hook looking to get off the mark for points.

Notably, it was a physical game and there were a few knocks - something the boys will have to get used to - but nothing malicious, just old-fashioned battling.

MoM went to A D, although very close runners were T L and S G. A D did a huge amount of chasing down, winning the ball, and some good distribution to back it all up.