NLS: Torquay United v Bath City 7:45pm 7 August 2018

I thought it was a decent scrap between two evenly-matched sides.

Fair play to Bath in that they did not come to park the bus but to play football - and played a bit more football than the home team did.

On our way to winning the Southern League Western Section in 1926/27, we had a home record of P13 W12 L1 - the only defeat being against Bath on 27 December.

On the plus side, we looked disciplined defensively and the effort put in to blocks and saving tackles bodes well for a "solid" season. Also, I was impressed by the workrate of our two big signings - Dickson and Hall. I thought that they were great signing on paper - but could remember thinking the same about Matt Hewlett and Ben Harding. Fortunately, it looks as if Hall and Dickson are here to try to win something rather than stroll around in semi-retirement.

I expected us to set up with Hall as holding midfielder and Dickson having license to get forward, but we set up more with Hall and Dickson as a two - leaving Regis free rein to float behind the front two. That meant that we only had three players with a primarily attacking role and all three had stinkers.

Reid did well to nick the ball off a defender early on and lay in Williams on goal - but Williams blasted the decent opportunity high and wide. This was the only time in the match that the two combined in any way. At the risk of being boringly repetitive, they are not an effective combination. Owers has made a show of making Williams feel wanted by giving him the captaincy, but he will soon get p*ssed off if he has to continue to plough a lonely furrow with no support. Regis was anonymous.

No surprise to see Regis and Reid replaced by Nabi and and Keating at half-time. But Bath dominated the start of the second half, before gradually we built up a head of steam. Keating's first meaningful intervention was to clear a goal bound Niate header off the line. After that, he started to trouble Bath with his constant movement. What he lacks in technique, he makes up for in effort. The free role is ideally suited to Nabi but I was disappointed in his mobility which meant he did not get into as many goal scoring positions as he should.

I have seen us have slightly the better of games and lose 1-0 so many times that it is quite refreshing to be on the other end of it.

Four points out of six and two clean sheets against two times likely to be in the thick of the battle for play-off places is a decent return.

Our solid defensive shape is a huge plus, our lack of cutting edge a bit of a worry.

How will we fare when a team comes to Plainmoor to park the bus? I wonder .....