Having described our pre-season as the good, bad and ugly, I would say that Saturday was more like a mixture of the sublime to the ridiculous! The former would describe some of our attacking play, which at times was scintillating. It seemed like whenever we put together a moment of quality, we scored. The latter would sum up our defending. If you are good enough to score nine or the opposition is bad enough to concede nine, we shouldn't be allowing them to score three. And it was not only that. Woodbridge also hit the bar and created other opportunities due to our lazy attitude when out of possession. You can't always rely on taking all your chances, scoring picture book goals, free kicks flying into the top corner, soft penalties and a ridiculous own goal to win matches. There are three parts to the game in open play: in possession, out of possession and transition (from attacking to defending and defending to attacking). We only looked half decent in the first and last. The excellent quality we showed in the final third (from open play and dead balls) masked an otherwise far from convincing effort.

If I go through the goals individually, this report will just be a list of finding different ways to describe "he crossed", "he shot" and "he headed". Suffice to say that four goals were scored courtesy of excellent deliveries in open play from Jack Eades, with the highlights being James Brighton's towering far post header from a deep cross and JP's hat-trick header at the near post from a whipped in ball. Jack does possess the full repertoire. In between, JP scored two tap ins, we benefited from an own goal and a debateable penalty, while Bevo headed in from a well rehearsed free kick that I would have thought some teams in this league might have wised up to by now. There is no point in changing them until we stop scoring from them!

Now for what happened the other end. The score was 5-2 and not 5-0 at the break because of our inability to press quickly enough from a quickly taken free kick for the first and allowing the front player to come off our centre backs, then turn and play forward for the second. We compounded that problem by holding too high a line instead of dropping off leaving Taff hopelessly exposed. Their 11, who caused us problems throughout the first half, also hit the bar and another shot from 20 yards, with our back four again on their heels, went inches wide. To compound the problem of our indiscipline and lack of shape, we started to take liberties on the ball in deep positions with diagonal passes being intercepted and centre backs being tackled to set up counter attacks. I have since watched the DVD and it looks no better. Only James Brighton defended properly throughout the whole afternoon. We lacked intelligence, urgency, energy and discipline throughout the team with players staying wrong side, not pressing or recovering quickly enough and no collective work to regain possession or stop the opposition from playing forward. There may be reasons for heavy legs but there is no excuse for a poor mentality, whether that is arrogance because of the ease at which we scored, a lack of concentration or an inability to apply yourself properly. It needs nipping in the bud because on another day, as ridiculous as that may seem when you've scored nine, it will cost us. It is also an attitude that will cost young players the chance of progressing. They should be doing the right things when it's easy so that when tougher tests present themselves (in this league or the first team) they are ready. You never know when your chance may come so you have to be ready all the time. That means doing things right all the time. I would not want any of our back four going into an opportunity to be involved at Wrexham (should it happen) off the back of that performance and the players need to think in the same way.

Anyway, back to the catalogue of goals. JP's hat-trick made it 7-2 within minutes of the re-start, but more lethargic defending allowed their forward to chest, turn and score unchallenged in our box to reduce the deficit to 7-3 before Liam Hughes curled a precise left footed strike inside the far upright and Chris Tonks bent a stunning 25 yard free kick into the top corner to complete the scoring. For those old enough, my knowledge of football history meant that following our two late goals the score-line resembled England v Scotland at Wembley in 1961 and the hapless Frank Haffey rather than Real Madrid v Eintracht Frankfurt at Hampden in 1960! I think 9-3's come around about every 50 years!

I am sure that everyone will now be predicting a 0-0 draw on Wednesday and our next visitors to the R Costings Abbey Stadium, Newmarket Town, achieved this score-line at the weekend against one of the title favourites, Kirkley & Pakefield. We were watched by 107 spectators on Saturday and we are trying the first of a series of promotions on Wednesday night to attract more support for our young players. The production line of Coulson, Willmott, McAuley, Ives, Marriott into first team professionals needs your support to keep going. Last year we lost £1500 simply by staging home matches. The likes of Patrick, Coakley, Hudson and Berry have already played in the first team and we hope they are joined by the likes of Eades, Hughes, Brighton, Bevan etc in the future. JT has already made his mark in the first team during pre-season.

So, please come along on Wednesday and pay whatever you want to watch the future of Cambridge United. It's usually £5 for adults and £2 for concessions but we hope that by letting you decide what to pay we may attract first time supporters who may enjoy the football and come back! I can't guarantee another 12 goals but we try to do things in the right way and I promise it will be better than sitting at home watching our national team getting booed at Wembley with Sky conducting yet another inquest into the dismal failure of our millionaires at you know what!

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