fought out a disappointing Martonmere Cup tie at BAA on Saturday, which saw Wolves go down 1-0.

Wolves' Dennis Brown and Andrew Bascome of Dandy Town said that it would be unfair to gauge their teams on this first game -- encouraging news for fans who had to endure a mediocre fixture.

"Although the result wasn't a positive one for us I saw a lot of positive things that we managed to accomplish and I am sure that we will be able to build on these,'' said Brown.

"I told the players that and we all know that we can build on that first game. Naturally I was disappointed over the loss, but I didn't think we played too bad. A lot of things we set out to do we accomplished but the main thing is just putting our chances away and we didn't...it's a learning process for the players, I think they realise that in order to get over teams like Dandy Town they have to put the chances away.'' Brown, a former Bermuda international centreback, said he was impressed with Wolves central defenders Tori Davis and Jamal Warren.

Davis, who is the team's key utility player and who will be used in many positions this season, was standing in for newcomer Diallo Sharrieff who the coach reckoned was not yet match fit.

"Yes, I was very pleased with the pair in the middle of the defence, but we can't hide the fact that we need to work on our attack because you don't win matches by keeping possession most of the time,'' he said.

Had Wolves been more productive going forward and taken advantage of the scoring openings that were created in the second half of the encounter they would have come out of the game with a victory.

"But we will get better, I am quite confident of this,'' he said. Bascome, a former Bermuda international who is entering his first season with Dandy Town, warned against reading too much into the match.

"I am looking at Christmas when we hope to be somewhere near our best, then we should be alright,'' he said.

"I am not putting much in Saturday's game, that's just my third game with them. I just had two pre-season games with them. I was pleased with the result. I was more concerned about not letting goals go in, so I think we tightened that up a bit, Kuma Smith gave us a lot of added strength down in the back of the defence.'' "I was pleased with what I wanted to get out of the game. We didn't get any goals against us and I was a little pleased with things at the back of the defence, but of course the attacking can be much better and work has to be done there-- in time all will come.'' According to the coach the opener gave them the opportunity of trying to experiment, but noted that he was primarily interested in concentrating on the defence where he reckoned Kuma Smith stood out at centreback.

Goal conceded was one of Town's main weaknesses last season, he added, and he was anxious to have them work on trying to prevent goals from being scored against them this time around.

Continued on page 23 Best to come Continued from page 21 "In this first game we were trying to work on things like that and combined with improving our physical conditioning and establishing good team harmony we will make steady progress,'' he said.

"With Kuma Smith playing sweeper he has added a lot at our back.'' Kevin Hurdle snatched the winner for Town in the second half and the coach hinted the tall striker will be used as Town's target man.

Carlos Smith played the first game behind the front players -- a role Bascome described as being similar to the old inside forward position and not that of a midfielder.

"With the players that we have I am trying to use Carlos as an inside forward, he is not really playing deep out of midfield because we have two half backs with Pernell Douglas and Lionel Furbert. We have two inside forwards like Carlos and Devon Binns to play just ahead of them.'' With quality players such as Darron (Duke) Simons, Paul Cann and Reggie Tucker Bascome will have many attacking options.