Daventry Town 3
Holbeach United 1
Seb Hayes refused to get too downbeat after seeing his Holbeach United side suffer a 3-1 reverse at Daventry Town on the opening day of the new Future Lions UCL Premier Division season.
A double from Luke Emery (16 and 19) left the Tigers up against it from the off at Communications Park on Saturday, but a beauty from debutant Billy Smith (38) got them back into the game.
The winger, signed from Wisbech Town in the summer, cut inside from the left and buried a fine finish into the corner of the net.
Holbeach had plenty of chances to haul themselves back onto level terms or perhaps even into the lead, but Kieran Fitzgerald’s late strike gave the hosts all three points.
Boss Hayes felt that his side created enough chances to win the game, but admitted that Daventry were the more clinical side and deserved their victory.
He said: “Obviously we lost. But I think we did a lot of things well on Saturday.
“For me, I felt we deserved something from the game – we created so many chances, but just couldn’t take them.
“You have to say fair play to Daventry. It was something of an end-to-end game and we had a lot of possession in the second half, but they were always dangerous.
“On another day, we’d have taken our chances and perhaps gone on to win the game. We just weren’t clinical in attack and strong enough in defence.
“I just thought that we were about 20 per cent off our best, which is probably something to do with our pre-season not going as planned. We started the game very well, but just fell away.
“I’m certainly not about to start panicking. Last year we started brilliantly, but you’d never say we were in the title mix.
“Yaxley and Wisbech Town started very badly, but finished as the top two.
“So, while I’m frustrated to walk away with a defeat, I’m not about to get carried away.
“We’re still one of eight or nine teams that will fancy their chances of winning the league. We just might not see our best form for a few more games.”
Holbeach, who won at Daventry at the back end of last season, had a great early chance when Josh Ford fired over when in one-on-one with the home keeper.
But they fell behind when Ricky Drury spilled a long-range Adam Confue effort and Emery reacted first to open the scoring from the rebound.
It was 2-0 moments later when a Fitzgerald cross found Confue, who in turn picked out Emery to net his second in three minutes.
A Jack Smith free-kick was tipped past the post for a corner and the same player hit the bar with a header from the resulting delivery as Holbeach looked to fight back.
It was very much game on when wing wizard Billy Smith opened his account for the club with a goal that Hayes described as “special” – something fans of the Carter’s
Park club will hope to see on a regular basis this season.
After the break it was the visitors who gobbled up much of the possession, but Daventry killed the game off late on when Fitzgerland smashed home a cross from Jordan Orosz.
Tigers: Drury, Harker (Clay 46), T Smith (Barker 60), Cartwright, N Jackson, Bird, Tinkler, A Jackson, B Smith, Jack Smith (Leckie 70), Ford. Not used: Avis.
Attendance: 70
