Many thanks to the fifteen who donned the famous red and white stripes of the Inter Blades yesterday morning, to say it was a bad day at the office was an understatement, but some times you just have to admit that we were beaten comfortably by a very good side.
It really was a tale of one side that was very good and one that wasn't really at it on the day. I know that Steve had said that he'd had to cancel his mini-bus due to lack of players, but I can only presume the bus was a double-decker as Preston started with 5 or 6 subs on the sideline and two more turned up half way through the first half! ;-)
Preston started down the hill and with the hurricane behind their backs, so obviously the first half was all going to be about defending for us, which we did very well until the last ten minutes of the first half, but Preston got the goal and then another before half time. Had we made it through to half time at 0-0 then maybe we would have had the confidence to at least force a goal in the second half and then see what happened, but we just weren't good enough yesterday. Once the third went our heads went down and it was just a case of how many we could restrict them to, I was relieved at the final whistle that they'd only added another 3 as it could have been more.
The Preston team are about as professional as you're going to find at this level, they get fantastic support from Preston North End and Steve has them organised to a regimental standard. Obviously I've not seen all of the "top end of the table teams" play, but taking into account their demolishing of Rochdale also last week then I can't see anyone getting anywhere near them this year. They play in the correct manner but also take it very seriously. Where as I made my normal multiple substitutions every half hour to ensure everyone got at least an hour on the pitch, Preston kept nearly all their best players on for just about the duration with some of the subs only getting five or ten minutes. I don't know how Steve keeps them all happy, but fair play to him for managing it though.
Many thanks once again, maybe this is just the kick up the backside we need, as we've "just doing enough" in the previous few games, hopefully we'll be able to get back to competing in the same way as we did the first few games.