Ian Baird is once again pleased with his side as the Hawks beat Winchester City 2-0 at the City Ground. 

The Hawks were made to work hard against a determined City side in testing conditions, with a mixed XI getting over the line amid the circumstances.

With one final pre-season friendly against Eastleigh to come, Baird is pleased that his side are continuing to maintain high standards and is insistent that he doesn’t want to see them drop with the seasons starting flag in sight.

Reflecting on yesterday’s win Baird said: “I thought we did very well again.

“It was probably a tricky fixture in pre-season, we gave the older players the evening off considering the work that they’ve done in pre-season so it could have looked that we put a weakened side out.

“I said to the players before that we don’t step off it and continue what we’ve been doing all pre-season which is getting better and better which we are, we’re looking really fit again.

“I thought they were a decent side, coped well for the first 15 minutes and it looked as if it was going to be really hard evening for us.

“Once we got to grips to that then once again we overran them and our passing and movement was very good.”

And Baird was pleased with the way that both of the early strikes were scored.

“The first goal was a great move down the left hand side, Josh Taylor towards Ollie Dennett’s who where he should be towards the frame of goal and stuck it in from a yard.

“Anyone who was listening from the sidelines would have heard that I had a bit of a go at Jonah because he lost the first eight headers then he picked up the pace and the goal that he scored was fantastic again, no backlift he just smashed it in the bottom corner.

“They continued to have a good performance right to the end of the first half but everybody did very well.”