Another sunny day. Another pre-season friendly. Another 1-1 draw.
A lot of the post-match chatter overheard from some of the players whilst they were doing their warm-down centered around our lack of cutting edge up front and failure to put chances away.
Can't disagree.
The second half saw us with enough chances to put the game out-of-sight despite the visitors' equaliser just after the hour mark when we were caught square and their no11 was put through on goal to slot home comfortably.
Shortly before that Niall Rhodes was acres clear and looked set to put us 2-0 up with an easy finish but an unselfish nature got the better of him and he rolled it to Jaryd Ahmed who finished the job; it was just a shame that he has strayed offside.
On 73 minutes Arnold Nsimbe put Niall in on the right with the shot flashing just wide. Arnold then found himself in an excellent position to the right of the goal minutes later but was denied by an excellent stop at the near post by the Poynton keeper.
And with four minutes to go Arnold had clear sight of goal yet again but his shot was high and not-so-handsome.
There wasn't that much fun and games to speak of for what went before that rather action-packed last 35 minutes of the match.
Rick Whyatt did drill home from the edge of the box after just five minutes but then the first half petered out with only two more efforts to record: Steve Piggott doing well to turn a long range effort around the post after 22 minutes and then our own Daniel O'Donnell firing inches over just before half-time.
With eyes slowly starting to focus on Bacup on Saturday 8th August there's two more pre-season workouts for Terry to gain some idea as to who will be stepping out for that first league match....
