IT has been a busy summer for March Town and after the additions of David Jackson from Swaffham and Camara Harriott from Thetford last week, they finally kicked off pre season away at Cottenham on Saturday.

Despite the changes the Hares first pre season run out didn’t quite go to plan, they fell to a 6-1 defeat having taken a one nil lead in the game.

However, as a result of the intense heat both managers agreed to split the game into three 30 minute periods and March boss Paul Crosbie was pleased despite the defeat.

“As a result of one thing or another it was a mixture of first, reserve and youth team players that took part on Saturday.” Crosbie said.

“As is often the case at this time of the year we had some lads away on holiday which meant we couldn’t take our full squad, so we mixed it up a bit. We took some young lads from our youth team with us as well as a handful from the reserve team.

“The game was split into three 30 thirty minute periods so we changed the way we set up the team. In the first period we played what I thought was our strongest team and we came in winning 1-0.

“Really it should have been 2-0 as we played very well in that first 30 minute spell.

“In the second period we made five changes and bought on a few of our reserve players and conceded a few goals, we did the same thing again in the third period with our younger players.

“Despite conceding goals and losing the game, from my point of view, the experience the lads got out of the game was very important in their development.”

It’s a busy schedule for March as they look to hit the ground running come August and Crosbie is looking for results to pick up over the next few weeks.

“At the moment results mean very little, performances are more important, however we have trained and worked hard of late and I will be a bit worried if results do not start to pick up within the next few weeks as we look to kick on at this level,” he said.

“We go to Wisbech Tuesday night and we will be taking a much stronger squad than Saturday and for a few players it will be their first run out but for the majority their second, after Saturday.

“We have still got four important players missing and in the past we haven’t always been that competitive at Wisbech but I am looking for the lads to go and express themselves in what is a local derby.

“I’m sure Saturday’s defeat won’t knock the lad’s confidence as we go forward, because we spoke before and after the game about what we were looking for and as a manager I was pleased with the performance from the lads.”