Presteigne St Andrews’ manager Barry Williams says he took a great deal of confidence from the team’s performance in the pre-season match at Wellington despite ending up on the wrong end of a 6-2 scoreline.
“They are a very good side but I am not disappointed at all about this as this was a brilliant work out for us,” he said.
“Of last season’s first-team squad, we only fielded Max Powell and Joel Layton, but we also included Chrissie Jones.
“Other than that it was pretty much all of last season’s Reserve side and we came up against an excellent team whose one-touch passing was excellent.
“I am very grateful to Simon Hamer who came at about a minute’s notice to keep goal for us as Trevor Gummer has a knee injury – he did really well and had no chance at all with any of the goals,” he added.
Wellington took and early lead and then doubled their advantage before Connor Bird put Presteigne back in the game with the first of his two goals.
The home side opened out a 4-1 lead and then Bird was on target for the second time to give Presteigne renewed hope only for the home side to net twice more late on.
Barry said he is hoping to be able to field a stronger squad for the next friendly match which could be at Woofferton next week, although this is yet to be confirmed.
“It was always going to be disrupted in the second half as we used a fair few substitutes and this told to some degree,” he said.
“But you sometimes learn more from a defeat than a win and there was no disgrace in going down to a very useful Wellington side.
“Robbie Steele, Tom Evans and Nick Evans are all back from holiday this week and I am hoping they will be involved soon, while I am also planning to talk to Liam Jones.”