SLOUGH Town have suffered a 4-3 defeat to Eastleigh in their first pre-season friendly of the summer at Arbour Park on Tuesday, writes Rob Stevens.

The Rebels

fell two goals behind when National League side Eastleigh netted twice in as many minutes, Joe Partington and Sam Smart on target for the visitors.

The hosts pulled a goal back through Max Worsfold, a summer signing from Maidenhead United, before half-time, and then captain Mark Nisbet equalised just past the hour mark.

A trialist put Eastleigh back in front before substitute Daniel Roberts drew Slough level again with a little over 10 minutes still to play.

Eastleigh won with a goal from a second trialist six minutes from time, but Slough joint-manager

Jon Underwood

has explained there are positives to take from the friendly match.

He told the Observer: "We don't like to concede four goals but we've got to consider the quality of the opposition, who reached the play-off semi-finals in the National League last year.

"They are a very good side, train full-time and had a game on Saturday as well to get some cobwebs out, so they're probably a little bit further down the line than we are.

"We expected a tough game and that's what we got. It's exactly what we wanted. At the front end of our pre-season we've got two National League sides and Bournemouth Under 23s. We think that those games will really bring us on quickly as a team in terms of our fitness and sharpness.

"We could've played a side from three leagues below and beat them 5-0 and we wouldn't have got anything out of it, but we got loads out of that. We're really pleased that they came up to play us and it was a really tough game, but a good first game for us.

"Scoring three goals against a National League side was good and we looked a threat.

"There were spells in the first half where they had the ball and kept it really well. We had to work really hard to stop them and try to stay compact. We probably weren't as compact as we wanted to be and we said at the end if we were playing them for real we would've set ourselves up to be a little more solid.

"We were a little bit open but it wasn't the night to try and kill the game and make it difficult. This was about the players working hard and getting minutes on the pitch, and that's all pre-season is about.

"We didn't need to peak. We want to peak on August 3rd when we playing Dorking Wanderers at Arbour Park and these sort of games will help us do that."

Slough will use pre-season, which continues with a visit to Arbour Park from National League side Sutton United this Saturday (3pm), to experiment with different personnel and tactics in a bid to become more adaptable.

Underwood commented: "We're going to try a few different things in the coming games. We will try one or two players in a few different positions as well because we need to learn. We already know our squad very well but we've got some new faces as well and need to look at a few different things.

"When we come to the real thing we can be adaptable and maybe change systems within a game.

"We think we've got a really good mix of players within the squad now, different types of players that we can hopefully pick the right team for the right games and still have quality on the bench as well."