HEATHER St John's boss Stephen Rigby is hoping his side have
learnt the lessons from their heavy Wolves defeat as they prepare to
entertain an Aston Villa XI tomorrow night (Thursday).
The Saints were beaten 8-1 by Wolves' under-21s last week and Rigby admitted it had been a 'massive learning curve'.
But he feels his troops can respond to that result and said: "We learnt a lot from that game to be fair.
"We need to learn from the mistakes.
"The main thing is that we need to make sure we don't switch off, even for a split second.
"The Wolves game showed us that. It was 2-1 to them approaching the 44th minute, we lost focus and they scored four times in as many minutes!
"When you are playing against that calibre of players, you can't switch off like that and the same goes for our league.
"We will come up against some good players who will punish us.
"But I am sure we will learn from that game. We have a good group of players here who I am confident will do well this season and hopefully hit the ground running."
Rigby admits he can't wait for the Villa clash at St John's Park tonight, with the clash being refereed by former Premier League Uriah Rennie.
"I am a massive Villa fan, so it will be great to play against them," Rigby added. "There has been a lot of interest in the game to be fair and so I think it will be really good.
"I have spoken to Uriah and he is really looking forward to it as well.
"He doesn't referee many games now so it certainly adds some spice to the game."
Tickets are £4 for adults and £2 concessions, with under-16s free.
Heather battled out a 2-2 draw with Ellistown on Saturday.
They took the lead through Robinson but Ellistown hit back to level.
Doyle then made it 2-1 before Ellistown levelled with five minutes to go.
The Saints were beaten 8-1 by Wolves' under-21s last week and Rigby admitted it had been a 'massive learning curve'.
But he feels his troops can respond to that result and said: "We learnt a lot from that game to be fair.
"We need to learn from the mistakes.
"The main thing is that we need to make sure we don't switch off, even for a split second.
"The Wolves game showed us that. It was 2-1 to them approaching the 44th minute, we lost focus and they scored four times in as many minutes!
"When you are playing against that calibre of players, you can't switch off like that and the same goes for our league.
"We will come up against some good players who will punish us.
"But I am sure we will learn from that game. We have a good group of players here who I am confident will do well this season and hopefully hit the ground running."
Rigby admits he can't wait for the Villa clash at St John's Park tonight, with the clash being refereed by former Premier League Uriah Rennie.
"I am a massive Villa fan, so it will be great to play against them," Rigby added. "There has been a lot of interest in the game to be fair and so I think it will be really good.
"I have spoken to Uriah and he is really looking forward to it as well.
"He doesn't referee many games now so it certainly adds some spice to the game."
Tickets are £4 for adults and £2 concessions, with under-16s free.
Heather battled out a 2-2 draw with Ellistown on Saturday.
They took the lead through Robinson but Ellistown hit back to level.
Doyle then made it 2-1 before Ellistown levelled with five minutes to go.
