Our first game of the season saw a new look youth team put on an excellent display of football. The first half saw many chances go begging for Hartley (with the woodwork hit 3 times) and I got the feeling it was going to be one of those nights.

Harry Rudge opened the scoring 2 minutes into the second half after an excellent through ball from m.o.m Jake Tanner. However, after the goal we lost our shape a little, showing our inexperience slightly as we resorted to be ruffled by a physical Cove team.

Both sides could have had a penalty in the second half, but the ref rulled both incidents to be outside of the box.

Cove equalised from a corner, which in fairness was about the only times they looked threatening throughout the match.

Hartley passed the ball well, had a good shape about them for the majority of the match and, from the disappointment in the dressing room after the game, I hope will use the experience they gained to learn to kill teams off and know when to dominate the football.

A big 'thank you' to everyone who turned up to support the lads, I thought it was a great atmosphere for many of the boys' first experience of youth team football.

Team: Jennings, Sutton, Cornwell, White, Nicolson, Jones (c), Tanner, Bromley, Collier, Rudge, Third.

Subs: Franklin, Phillips, Read, Craggs, Wright.

Scorer: Harry Rudge