AS opening days of the season go, Saturday’s at Altrincham was pretty decent. A point snatched when defeat looked to be on the cards and glorious sunshine to bask in on the open terrace with hundreds of fellow Darlo fans all around.

As far as the game was concerned, there were positives to take as well as some lessons that will need to be learned.

Bar some slack marking for the first goal, our two centre-halves were more than comfortable with what was thrown at them. I was particularly impressed with Kevin Burgess, who capped a man of the match performance with a wonderful header from a Terry Galbraith corner.

Another positive was Josh Gillies. Having not really seen much of him, and accepting that he hadn’t had a pre-season due to trying to secure a new club, I thought Gillies showed more than enough potential to feel confident of him being a key player this season. After a quiet start, his influence grew. By the end of the game, despite clearly tiring, he will have been reasonably pleased with his contribution. With quick feet, a desire to receive the ball and run with it and a decent delivery, I can see him being our chief creator of chances this season.

In terms of the learning points, tighter marking is a must. Unfortunately, Gary Brown gave James Lawrie too much space to loop a header over Peter Jameson to give the home side the lead. Meanwhile, in the centre of midfield, our two of Phil Turnbull and Leon Scott at times were well and truly swamped by four and five home midfielders with Altrincham opting to play very narrow. With many teams in this league playing narrow midfields, I think Martin Gray will need to consider supplementing his usual two man central midfield with another body. With our midfield bogged down by the home side, Amar Purewal and Nathan Cartman looked very isolated up front.

Off the pitch, it was great to be part of a good following on the opening day. While it’s quite nice being able to wander around a ground and switch ends depending on which way we’re kicking, it feels good when segregated and being all together.

Whilst the vast majority of the fans were well behaved and backed the team in the right way, it was such a shame to see we still attract some idiots who have to behave in a pathetic manner, whether it was getting into a battle with goalkeeper because he was holding on to the ball, or running on to the pitch when Galbraith equalised, feigning to hit the home goalkeeper. The mentality of these mindless few frustrates the hell out of me and continues to sully the reputation of our club and us fans.

All in all, we’ve got to be happy with the point. While there is certainly room for improvement, we secured a point when defeat looked on the cards against one of the most fancied teams in the division.