Paul Holleran gave us his thoughts on the opening day draw at Aggborough.....

‘I thought it was a real tough one for a season opener. Kidderminster at Aggborough. Their home form has never really been in question over the last few years whether they’ve been challenging for promotion or not. They’ve got a certain style of play that works well for them, and they had a good tempo today. We went toe to toe with them first half, got the decision for the penalty, so we’ll take that, but you’ve got to be honest and say that from 45 to 65 minutes…. You can talk about us not being right but they didn’t allow us to be - they suffocated us really. They overloaded us, they stepped into play all over the place, they moved the ball quickly. It’s what Kiddy teams have done over the years; they do it to a lot of teams and they did it to us last season at Leamington.

‘I was disappointed with the goals. They were both from set plays where we sort of half knew what was coming, but we were a bit ragged for the first one, out of sync really. It was a short corner but it was really well worked. There were patches in the game when you could really see that it was a full time team against a part time team - there’s no ifs and buts about it - and you accept that, that’s the level we’re at. It was a fantastic strike from Prosser I think it was, and Chambers was alive, so that’s it, 1-1. We weathered it a little bit then, but the second goal is disappointing because it’s a clear foul on the goalkeeper because as he’s coming for the ball one player has just pushed him into the net. When you’ve stood on the touchline for as long as I have, when dead balls are being put into the box you’re always looking to see where the Referee is, and he was in a good position, on an angle, 14-15 yards away. It was clear for him to see, and he’s then looking over at his assistant referee who is 50-60 yards away, for a decision! It’s crazy, absolutely crazy. It was so black and white. And then the Jack (Edwards) situation - I’m saying this without having been able to look back at it, but initially it seemed to me that Cliff Moyo has slipped to begin with. His two feet have gone up, and it looks like a two footed challenge to begin with, and Jack’s gone in….. With both of their body positions, they both looked unorthodox. There was no malice in either of them. You just want a referee to show a bit of common sense in those sort of situations. Because Cliff’s slipping, Jack’s ended up in a difficult position, but there’s no malice in it… so sadly in a matter of minutes we’ve ended up having a goal against us, a red card against us and you stand there and think, I’m not sure that’s correct really! There’s no VAR or anything so you’re stuck with it really.

‘The biggest compliment I can pay the team with it being the first game of the season, is that we’ll probably play 50 games this season and every game will be a different story. The reason they were on the back foot for long periods - you look at the players that have come off the bench - and I think Kaiman Anderson’s goal probably sums it up. It was a decent ball, a ball he had no right to win. This is a player who was probably expecting to start and didn’t start; and he’s ran and used his body and he’s fought and he’s scrapped, and on two occasions he was second best to their left sided defender and the goalkeeper. It was a 60/40 ball on both occasions to their players, and he’s managed to battle and fight and scrap, and end up with a fantastic finish from a really acute angle.

‘Sometimes you get points for different reasons, and while today we were second best as a football team for periods I think for character and work ethic and having a go, we deserved something out of the game. We’ve had a lot going on these last couple of weeks, and you’ll get no tougher assignment than going to Kidderminster away on the opening day. I think because we won there last season and got a point today people might become complacent, but they’re a big old football club with a big tradition and we’ve had some tough afternoons there, so for us to score two goals and get a point, and respond in the manner we did was great.’

‘We’ve had a couple of decisions go against us but that pleases me sometimes. I think the longer you’ve been in the game, sometimes you don’t want individuals in your team to implode, you want them to show some control against decisions that have gone against you, and you want to see how they respond; so it was a good start for us and I’m delighted that the players we’ve picked up from leagues below - Josh March and Kaiman Anderson, not only did they get a taste of what the National League is all about, they also got off the mark and scored goals, which can only be good for us, because one of the challenges I put down to the players was that last season we had two players wearing the number nine shirt that scored over 40 goals. Between Matthew Stenson and Colby Bishop I think there was 41 goals. That ain’t going to happen again, so we need to get back to what we were doing before with people chipping in. So it was a good start today with Josh and Kaiman both scoring.
It’s a great away point for us, but we’ll recover quickly because we know we’ve got another massive game coming up on Tuesday evening.’