Plenty of positives despite defeat for Peterborough Sports, particularly a dazzling debut performance
Peterborough Sports chief Michael Gash was keen to pick out the positives from an opening day National League North defeat at Chester, in particular a dazzling debut from new striker Josiah Dyer.
Dyer scored both Sports’ goals in a 3-2 defeat at the hands of one of the title favourites. He replied instantly on two occasions to Chester taking the lead, a fact that also highlighted the character in the City club’s squad.
Dyer is a former Barnsley player and a current Montserrat international, but this was his first experience of step two football in England.
Joint-boss Gash, a top-notch non-league centre-forward in his heyday, said: “Josiah was very good considering it was his first game at this level. He was a handful throughout against a very strong side and he showed great awareness as well as physical strength for his goals.
"For the first one he held off a defender before finishing in the corner and for the second one he was in the right place to slide in and score as a Dan Jarvis shot travelled across the goal.
"Josiah did exactly what we want from our strikers. It was very encouraging as was the fact the team showed the character to hit back straight away twice after falling behind against one of the best sides in the division.
"But we know we have to be even better when we play the top teams. Chester will be right up there at the end of the season so we can’t afford to make the mistakes we did, not against this calibre of opposition.
"We saw a couple of good individual performances and many players gave a 'par’ performance, but that won’t get us the results we want against the best sides.
"It was actually quite a scrappy game between two teams who didn’t really know what to expect from each other.”
Sports were without former Peterborough United striker Shaquile Coulthirst because of a knee injury, and Kaine Felix picked up a similar problem during the Chester game and had to limp off. Coulthirst faces 4-6 weeks on the sidelines, while Felix’s problem will be assessed when the results of a scan are known.
Veteran centre-forward Mark Jones missed yesterday’s game with a calf issue, but could return for Saturday’s home clash with newly-promoted Merthyr Town. The Welsh club opened their campaign with a 2-0 home win over Southport yesterday. Sports are also at home to Leamington on Tuesday, August 19.
"Merthyr will be riding high after their win yesterday,” Gash added. “But we know we will give anyone problems as long as we are on it. We have two home games now in which to get our season going.
"We will wait and see the extent of Kaine’s injury before deciding if we need to try add someone to the squad.”