Pre-season is back upon us once again, and after a well-deserved month off for the players they returned to action in style as they beat AFC Totton 3-1.

With a long National League South season ahead, it was a chance for the squad to be put through their paces and for the new names to gel into the Hawks way of playing.

Manager Doswell was eager to praise our hosts on Saturday for the match: “I think we’ve got to thank Totton for providing such brilliant facilities for our first game. The pitch was superb; they are ahead of us in their pre-season. They have played three or four games and it was a really competitive match. We have only trained twice, our first game was today and it was a really, really good workout.”

The gaffer also added that despite it only being a friendly that the opponents are no easy side to beat.

“They are going to be a good side this year, they’ve got a really good manager in place, I think the Club is being run fantastically and they will be favourites within their respective league. Whilst the result is not important, it is because anyone wants to win with anything you do.”

It was another promising performance from The Hawks attackers as the three goals scored were ones of pure class. New signing Joe Iaciofano bagged himself two, whilst the other went to the trialist who showed his skill before putting in beyond the keeper.

“I thought Iaciofano’s two goals were typical of Joe’s type of goals, I think he and Tommy [Wright] linked up really well in that first half, so that’s encouraging and something we are going to work on all the time in the sessions. With the third goal, people would have paid more than a few quid to get in here today, it was a sensational goal from two young players.”

By Liam Rice (@Liam_Rice9)