WE SCORED early on Saturday at Abingdon which settled us down and then we picked up two more goals as the game became stretched towards the end and our better fitness shone through.

We ground out the win, but it was fairly comfortable.

We took Neil Arndale off as a precaution as he had a calf niggle but he should be alright for Saturday.

Mike Tambling, Paul Banks and Mark Ford all had some game time on Saturday, while Will Loughman and Josh Parsons are still involved with us. Ford is from the Development Squad and is going to be a real player one day, although we cannot pitch him in just yet.

We have taken on three higher level local sides in Cheltenham, Swindon and Forest Green and I was grateful to get a draw with Cheltenham.

Our three away matches against lower level opposition have yielded wins at 4-0, 3-1 and 3-0.

We had to address our defence in the close season so to let in just one goal in those three games is pleasing.

Last campaign we conceded more goals than Didcot who went down, so it is something we had to look at.

Neil Arndale and Andy Gunn have come in and we are learning to stay in the game longer, not shipping two goals so we have to score three to win.

Sean Wood has now left the club and looks like going to Supermarine. Woody is a lovely lad but it has just not worked out for him. We have a lot of midfielders and Nathan Davies is back training with us as well after his ankle operation and is not a million miles away.

Ben Reardon has been really unlucky in that he was only involved at the start of pre-season. He came with a long-standing knee problem from his time at North Leigh and I think he is just delighted to have got to the bottom of it. He is about to go in for an operation and hopefully will be ready two or three weeks after that.

Following the Forest Green game I decided to revert to 4-3-3 which has served us so well in the last couple of seasons, so I am looking for one or two strikers.

A couple of deals have collapsed already so we are also investigating the loan market as managers decide to trim their squads with the leagues now up and running.