Horsham FC boss Dominic Di Paola: You can’t really gauge anything from our pre-season results

The Hornets continued their programme with excellent results against National League South teams.

Second half goals from Tom Richards and Alex Malins saw Horsham run out 2-0 winners at home to Maidstone United on Saturday. The Hornets then picked up a creditable 1-1 draw at Dorking Wanderers on Tuesday, Tom Kavanagh grabbing the goal from the spot.

The results extended Horsham’s unbeaten pre-season run following draws with the Metropolitan Police and Erith & Belvedere.

Di Paola said: “You can’t judge anything really in friendlies, all you can do is get through them unscathed and get everyone up to fitness. My view on pre-season is very much that’s all you can do.

“It was a good contest on Saturday. I thought we played really well in fairness. Last [Tuesday] night I thought we were good in parts, but there were some areas I wasn’t so happy with.

“We’ve got through our next stage of pre-season where people have done 60, 70 minutes. Some have got up to 90, so we’re now on the downhill bit towards the start of the season.

“You can never really gauge anything in terms of results. You just want to get half-decent performances.

“Lew Carey and Jack Mazzone came off injured at Dorking and Charlie Hester-Cook got injured in the warm-up, so you don’t really know where you are until the first game in August. Hopefully they’re all just niggles and they won’t hold us back too long.

“We’re getting to the point now where we’ve got a good idea on maybe 15, 16 [players]. One or two have got to do a bit more I think, but one or two have done really well and excelled. It’s a standard pre-season really.”

Di Paola also admitted results in pre-season weren’t a ‘realistic’ barometer of how well a team would fare during the league campaign.

The Hornets boss revealed he would prefer to see all friendly fixtures played behind-closed-doors as they were ‘just an extension of training’.

He added: “Selfishly, I’d love all of them to be behind-closed-doors. Maidstone supporters were really critical of their team on Saturday. I’d look at it and say, it’s just a pre-season friendly where you’re trying things out and you’re messing around with the team.

“I don’t think you pat yourself on the back for good training sessions, so I don’t think you should be patting yourself on the back for a good pre-season friendly. It’s just an extension of training. They’re not competitive, they’re not realistic.

“Take Dorking, they’ve got boys who’ve played 300 games in the Football League. I can’t imagine they get super up for a game against Horsham.

“Footballers are humans. It doesn’t mean it's the right attitude, but that’s where you are in pre-season. That’s why you see better results for the teams lower down against higher-league opposition.

“Our boys have to be super focussed otherwise we’re going to get pumped, whereas Dorking and Maidstone can probably play within themselves and nine times out of 10 beat us.

“It’s a means to an end. I watched the video back [from the Dorking game] and you see some good stuff that we can take into training with another tough game against Worthing on Saturday. I expect them to be at full-strength because they start their season the following week.”

Horsham entertain Worthing this Saturday before their penultimate friendly at home to Lancing on Tuesday (7.45pm).