Hastings Supporters Forum - 100% Unofficial!

Fully agree on set pieces n the middle of the park defiantly something need look at n I think once Ollie Rowe is fit with razor n smith in the team we should be good enough at the back, also I believe another full back would be extremely helpful as if Sam crabb or Alfie get injured do we have a good enough full back or any?? In my mind and I think quite a few Hastings fans I would like see whitehead n crellin back believes sort 2 of the problems and get Sammy back on corners and free kicks,

So where was okoh smith n Alan foster tonight ??

I actually felt first half we were very poor and Folkestone gave us a lesson in how to build attacks through midfield while we hit hopeful fifty yard balls that came straight back. Hollobone was poor yet again and I didn't feel Walder was much better.
Second half with ten men we actually looked a lot more threatening for a time as I think Folkestone sat back a bit....and in retrospect we really should have avoided equalising until the 94th minute.
Their second was down to weak defending, their third maybe a tad unlucky as the ball could easily have gone anywhere after hitting the post and their fourth another mistake.
But we certainly can't complain.....they were STREETS ahead of us tonight, could have had six at least and we can't blame it all on having ten men for half the game.....or indeed the ref who was pretty awful.
Like John, I think our selection was wrong and we flattered to deceive against very average opponents, Chipstead and Hythe. We MUST get more quality into the midfield if we are going to match the likes of Folkestone.
Great goal from Zac but other than that, the contribution from him and Jack was minimal...then again the service they got was poor.
While this was a sobering experience, we clearly haven't suddenly become a bad side but Gary and the players must learn from today as we were horribly outplayed, even with eleven men.

Should have added, the sending off tackle looked a bit reckless to me with, I thought, both feet off the ground and it was no surprise when the red card came out.  However I didn't think it was AFTER the whistle as has been suggested on the Folkestone forum.

-- Edited by Mick on Tuesday 25th of August 2015 10:02:01 PM

Vicious, horrendous and appalling tackle. The words used in the folkestone Herald report on their forum. I assume the person that wrote that report was the same person that refereed? Interesting that Cugley and the supporters over that side felt differently.

Whatever happened to big no5 trialist that was so impressive in the pre season friendlies before he got injured ? He would be great for us at the moment alongside Razor. Otherwise I hope Ollie Rowe is the answer to our defending although I always remember him as a left back when he was here before.

Any news on Okoh from anyone? he was on the pitch at the beginning of the game and was then seen leaving the Pilot Field half way through the match. Hope its just a niggle and nothing more serious.

And anything from the club on Pells? He would have been seen and back home now with the results so hopefully we have some news on how long he will be out. A full dislocation is usually a minimum of 6 weeks.

It's very early to say anything definitive yet, the team is mostly brand new and will take time to settle in. While that happens we'll probably have a few results such as Chatham where we'll be disappointed but as soon as we went down to 10 at half time last night we were hugely up against it vs a very very good side who's manager has been putting his stamp on things for over two decades!

We've got to get over it quick and beat Cray on Sat and also need to beat Walton on Mon ( if no replay for them ) to get our league confidence again. The Folkestone rematch is soon and if we can get a point there then that wouldn't be a bad result.

We're work in progress and we need to give Garry and the new players ( don't like to see the grief Hollobones getting in particular ) but I would still be very surprised if we weren't solidly in the 3-4 playoff position at least nearer the end of the season once things start to gel, Rowe appears, the Zac / Jack partnership gets better and Okoh gets a run of games.

What grief is Hollobone getting Dan that's upsetting you? I can only see that myself and Mick have both said he has had two poor games which he has, that's fact. At the same time I said that Max and Sammy were our two best players at Chatham in the match report. We don't want to go back to wrapping all the players in cotton wool like we did last year and being worried about hurting their feelings. look where that got us with the likes of Joe Shelley. Max has had two very poor games after a decent start but he's not the only one. Cannot see any other grief or unfair criticism unless I'm missing something. 

I do agree its way too early and i'm still very optimistic as to what we can achieve this season but the time to make a judgement in my opinion will be on Saturday 26th September after a run of Folkestone A, Faversham H, Dorking A, Worthing H and Three Bridges A in the space of three weeks. Then it will be fair to make, as you say, a definitive opinion of how the players and management team are doing.