Depleted Magpies narrowly beaten in opening game of the season

There were plenty of positives to take away as the Paul Hunt era at Heacham got off to a losing start with a 2-1 home loss to Walsham le Willows in the Thurlow Nunn Premier Division.Heacham found themselves two goals down early in the second half following a Charlie Norman brace but deservedly pulled a goal back through Josh Williams following the game’s best move.Both sides also had a penalty saved in an enthralling opening-day encounter in front of a crowd of 206, who soaked up the August sun.Hunt – missing nine first-team squad members – was proud of his team’s showing.”They are a good side and you can see why they do well. I think they were strong last year but it’s nice to get the season going,” he said.”When you have had a lot of things in a week that go against you as in injuries, suspensions and people away on holiday, to have those youngsters in there to call on and you know you can trust them is very pleasing.”We played a lot of minutes with them and they didn’t let us down and they gave us a bit of an edge in areas as well. “It’s nice to see their confidence grow and good to see them enjoying getting on the pitch because they’re going to be a real strength in the first team moving forward.” The visitors missed a golden chance to take the lead when George Bugg was brought down in the box by Aaron Watson, who saved the resulting spot-kick with his knee.But Walsham le Willows took the lead shortly after as Norman picked up the ball in the final third before placing his shot low into the corner.Heacham enjoyed a great spell towards the end of the first half and was guilty of missing a penalty of their own for a handball as Toby Hilliard was denied by a fine save from Ryan Duune. The heroics of Dunne denied Heacham a certain leveller with a breathtaking stop from Hilliard again just minutes later and the home side – despite being behind – had their tails up going into the break.Although Norman doubled his side’s advantage soon after the restart, Heacham refused to throw in the towel and pulled a goal back following a flowing move from one end of the pitch to the other. Colby Wood and Jack Prentice combined down the left before the ball found its way through to Williams who made no mistake with the finish.Hunt felt his side just about shaded the second half as the hosts ended the contest with five under-18s on the pitch. “I felt they didn’t create a lot after the break,” he said.”They had one dangerous ball in the box which came out and hit the crossbar, but in the second half we got in behind them twice and got good possession in areas and could have had a couple of goals.”None of us like losing, the boys don’t like to lose, but you also have to look at it objectively and there was a good graft.”We were in that game all the way through without having our strongest squad. “I was proud of the way we battled today and proud of the way they stuck together and right up until the end.”Young Tom (Beattie) got in the 18-yard box and I was thinking you can have a strike here, but it didn’t quite come down for him.”When you look back at our goal, there were seven or eight real incisive passes to get from one end of the pitch to the other, all on the floor and I mean that was a great goal.”The visitors were very cute at winning free-kicks at every opportunity in the first half – a point that wasn’t lost on the home boss. “In the first half, the ref said there were seven or eight fouls in the first 20 minutes and I thought out of those seven or eight, only three or four were actual fouls.”They were very cute and were making a lot of noise when someone was close to them and I think they drew four or five fouls that were not fouls.”The mentality is almost like you’re committing a lot of fouls but we hadn’t committed a lot of fouls, so they were very streetwise about making the ref think that we were committing a lot of fouls, but you know we handled that pressure really well.”Heacham: Watson, Akers, Cupit, Robinson, Dear, Hutton, Prudence, Willaims, Prentice, Hilliard, Wood. Subs (all used): Pightling, Beattie, Ford, Larman, Parke.