I’m writing these at 10am on Sunday morning, I’ve been awake since 3.30am, watched the game back several times, made 2 pages of notes and ideally I’d love nothing more than to be playing again tomorrow, welcome to the new season !

The reality of yesterday is that both myself and the team were dreadful yesterday. Myself because I’m responsible, and the team because we’re better than that. It’s not lost on me that since that great day on May 7th we’ve had two big cup games and been absolutely dreadful in both.

I understand the challenge this season brings and if my staff and players didn’t, they do now. Tividale were very good at what they did and credit to them, they deserve credit for the win, but if we defend like that as a team for the next 38 games we won’t pick up a point all season.

We spoke before the game about this being the start of the journey of challenging to get out this division and the importance of having the personal qualities to be about at the end of the journey. I have several players who completed the two previous journeys, being step 7 to 6 and step 6 to 5, this journey might take 3 years so game one isn’t the time to worry or panic, in fact it’s a great lesson in dealing with what we encountered yesterday before even contemplating playing our own game.

Thank you for the great support again yesterday and I wish I could have done more, the aim will be to ensure this time next week we have given you a performance to be proud of.

Dean