ROB HUGHES: What a downbeat journey home that was after a ludicrous rollercoaster of a game.

Three goals down inside 20 minutes, then to score two in two minutes – every attack seemed destined to end with a goal.

Neither side covered themselves in any glory defensively, and that was just the first half!

To top things off, the second half somehow managed to end goal-less, cumulating in Sean Newton having his injury-time penalty saved by Southport’s keeper –who to make matters worse had trained with the Bucks for a large proportion of last season.

Chris Shar’s debut up alongside Andy Brown looked promising, and Brown got his first goal of the season, later having an appeal for a penalty turned down. Early days yet, but I feel confident our record signing will cause opposition defences all kinds of problems.

As a bit of a grumble, I still feel we are not testing opposition keepers as much as we should be. I would feel a bit less aggrieved if opposition goalkeepers were simply ‘having a worldy.

It has already been said, but we lost the game in the opening 20 minutes, whether the players were still on the coach as we have conceded five goals in the last two games before we actually woke up. At Tamworth on Monday we were fortunate and rescued a point, but Saturday we were not so fortunate.

We have the pace and power to really trouble teams early on, if we can fly out of the traps early sides won’t be able to live with us. As it was, Southport were extremely sly and knocked a couple of our lads out of their stride early on and it took them half an hour to recover their composure.

If you are good enough, you are old enough. For me, next week at home, Nathan Rooney would start for his vision and ability, as would Samuels for his tenacity. Valentine offers a lot to the side, but I feel he could add that bit of composure and strength to the side while we shut games down. With Preston and Killock at centre-half, I am not so sure we need the midfield enforcer in the middle from the start of every game.

It’s all about opinions though, come Saturday afternoon – I will back the 11 Andy Sinton puts on the park, as I am sure you will to!

C’mon the Bucks!

• Fancy writing about AFC Telford each week? We need more bloggers, so email your details to the Shropshirestar.com editor here