Horncastle Town youngsters have lessons to learn after losing to Grimsby Borough fightback

That made it two defeats in their opening two games ahead of this weekend's trip to Cleethorpes Town Reserves and Rawdon said: “It was another day of lessons for a very, very young group.

“Of course we want to win. However, you have to accept defeat and learn from it. So we move on to training and the next game. There is a long way to go with this group and nothing happens overnight.”

Theo Williams opened the scoring, followed by a Toby Cotton penalty, but the visitors came back to make it 2-2 at half time and added a couple more goals in the second half.

“You could see Grimsby had come to play, but it was us who got the early goal on eight minutes with a good finish from Theo from inside the box,” said Rawdon.

“From then on Grimsby Borough tried to play, but we nullified them with our shape and the way we were set up – we forced them to go a bit longer and caught them offside a few times, which was really pleasing.

“On 35 minutes we broke the line, our man got taken down for a penalty and Toby Cotton made it 2-0. At that point we looked really comfortable, but ultimately it was that which was the cause of our demise – we looked too comfortable.

“Grimsby Borough got one back and 30 seconds from half time they were awarded a free kick. They put a great ball in the box, but got a free header unmarked at the back post and we went in 2-2.”

He continued: “Ultimately the game was decided through another passage of play which was uncontested and then another set piece that was almost a carbon copy of the one in the first half. I want to thank everyone who came out and showed their support for the boys – I think we were hovering around the 100 mark, which is absolutely fantastic.”