Slimbridge Assistant Manager Tom Speers admitted he was disappointed with aspects of the Swans’ display in yesterday’s 3-1 defeat at Paulton Rovers, however remained very positive with the progress that the young side were making, with the Swans sitting in fifth spot in the Pitching In Southern League South despite the defeat.

Slimbridge went in level at the break, with Will Hawes equalising a home goal that went in off Ben Deakin, before conceding two goals in two minutes, and never looking like getting back into the game after that. 

Speaking afterwards, Speers said ‘I thought we were worth a one all draw at half time, we went in probably the stronger team. In the first ten minutes of the second half, I thought we were going to go on for the win, and then we sort of collapsed a little. 

It’s the first time this season that we haven’t been precise with passing, we were putting balls into wrong areas, and just didn’t really get a feel for the second half, but again it was the first time this season that we’ve been this mistimed and mis-shaped. 

All credit to Paulton, they were good, they stuck at it, and it was a great finish for the third goal. We conceded a penalty and an own goal, we don’t concede good goals, we concede really poor goals which is frustrating at times, but we’ll take this one on the chin and go onto next week.’ 

Asked about the performances over the whole season, Speers was very upbeat – ‘In terms of the season, I think we’ve progressed really well, we’ve asked the boys to play a different style of football, we want to be a bit more possession based, we want to keep the ball and the boys are really buying into that. That’s why today's performance was so disappointing, because I don’t think we did at times. 

But we’ve got boys who have come in and really impressed, we’re scoring goals all over the place. We thought we might struggle to score this year without Sol, but we’ve got four or five boys now on five goals. We’ve got to remember we’re quite a young side, we’ve got a young goalkeeper, young wingers, and a couple of young ‘un’s coming through. 

So, I’m very happy with the start of the season, not necessarily today, but with the season we’re progressing quite nicely..’ 

With the new season looking as if it is about to be shut down again, Slimbridge are awaiting, like all clubs, notification from the FA and Government as to where the season will go from here. An announcement from the club will be made in due course.