My thoughts on yesterday:
I thought Stevenage started pretty well. They won a stream of corners and looked threatening. Their very high tempo press (sometimes with multiple players on one of ours) didn't really allow us any time on the ball. Even at the time though, the thought was 'they won't keep this up for 90 minutes'. Moore made a great defensive header off the line in this period.
When they scored, the surprise wasn't that they had done so, rather that it was from open play rather than from a dead ball. While you can moan about our defending here (and I did!) you have to credit the speed of the attack as well. Blaming Brown is IMO not really fair, he's just been taking the throw in, way up the pitch, but it did expose the lack of pace in our central defenders.
After they'd scored, their press eased off - perhaps they thought they could defend for the next 70 minutes - and we had a whole lot more comfortable possession. It wasn't a shock when we equalised and they never re-established any lasting dominance for the rest of the game. We were worthy winners.
There were two shocking misses. Bodin's was terrible - he had time, space and the whole goal to aim at. The Stevenage header was, if anything, worse.
Leigh was excellent and not just for his goals. He won header after header and tackle after tackle - but the thing I like best about him is that he offers us some acceleration. Our passing game is very pretty on the eye, but can be a bit one-paced at times - he adds some real incisiveness. Much like Mills can on the other side.
Beadle made at least one excellent save, and also went walkabout miles outside his area at one point - I thought that was going to cause trouble but we managed to get back into shape.
Most of our players had good games, I thought, and Murphy's assist for goal 3 showed what he can do. More please! McGuane sometimes looks a cut above any other midfielder on the pitch.
When you consider that Edwards, Harris, Mills, Thorniley, Henry, Browne and Negru (and more!) weren't even on the pitch, it looks like we have the strength in depth needed for the long season ahead