AFC Bridgnorth bosses want to see a reaction

Joint-managers Steve Barrow and Dom Heath saw their side go down 7-0 to an impressive Brocton side in a pre-season outing.

“I could make excuses about having key players missing but that’s what pre-season is for, to see how other players perform in their absence,” said Barrow. “And they didn’t perform to a reasonable level.

“I knew the run of games against Brocton, Darlaston and Tividale would be tough.

“We could very easily have played a team two leagues below us and won and everyone smiles and thinks everything is OK, and then you get beat in your first league game. But we want to be tested and we want to find out about our players.

“We were disorganised and lost our shape when we made changes, but Brocton were very, very good.

“It’s a bit of a wake-up call to the players and shows that the key details we keep talking about make a difference.

“That was the case Saturday. We pass a ball just behind a player, who then gets in nicked off him and two passes later it’s in the back of our net. We then clear a corner to the edge of the box and bang... it’s in our net. Anything we did wrong, we got punished for.”

“Brocton did the basics very well and while it hurts to get done 7-0, hopefully the players will learn from it.

“We are looking for consistency. We had players who played well against Drayton who didn’t play well on Saturday. And we had a couple who were poor at Drayton who came on second half against Brocton and played well.

“The players are either a four out of 10 or a nine out of 10. There is no in between.

Bridgnorth, who took on Darlaston on Wednesday, are at home to Tividale on Saturday.