Daniel Moore delivers honest assessment of Hebburn Town's friendly defeat against West Auckland Town

Hebburn Town FC manager Daniel Moore admitted his side produced a ‘disjointed performance’ in Saturday’s pre-season friendly defeat against West Auckland Town.

The fixture was hastily arranged after Anstey Nomads withdrew from a friendly against the Hornets - but their meeting with West Auckland was also cast in doubt after a machine used on the Trustmark Group Stadium pitch broke down and was unable to be removed.

With just 45 minutes to go until kick-off, the situation was resolved and the match officials gave the go-ahead as both managers hastily arranged their warm-ups ahead of the game. In an understandably low-key affair, it was the visitors that secured a narrow win thanks to a second-half goal from Fin O’Gorman - and that left Moore to deliver an honest assessment of his side’s display.

He told The Gazette: “The preparations wasn’t great for the players and you could feel that with them. It happens, it’s one of them. We didn’t know if the game would be on and you could tell that in the first 20 minutes. We had good spells, we made changes, then more changes, and by the end of it it was a disjointed performance. But it’s good to get minutes into players and that was the main aim of today.”

Injury concerns

The main concern for Moore in the aftermath of the game was injuries picked up by on-loan Hartlepool United winger Kian Foreman and summer signing Elliot Forbes. Both players were replaced by the time the midway point of the first-half had been reached - but Moore has stressed both substitutions were precautionary and stressed he will look to manage his squad ahead of next weekend’s final pre-season friendly at Northern Premier League East club Blyth Spartans.

He said: “Kian’s groin was just a little bit tight and Forbesy’ lower back was just stiff. I think they’ll just have a week off and they’ll be fine. We will have to look at managing the squad because there are a few in there that have done what they need to do in pre-season. They will do some short and sharp stuff and then there’s others that will get a runout at Blyth next week. It will be a team there that will be a mixture of younger lads and players that need to get that final push towards full fitness ahead of the season.”

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