We were a bit late arriving, so allowing for that, my impressions, for what they're worth:
Paracki and Abbas looked good. Paracki just looked like a pro at ease doing his job; right place, right time, right pass. Somewhat in the the same way Rossi tends to make it look easy, but maybe that's slightly too high a praise.
Abbas looked full of intent and like he wanted to impress. Seems to have fairly good pace. Didn't get enough time watching to see him put in a cross though.
Galloway was a bit dissapointing. Small lad and a number of misplaced passes.
Finkler looked tidy and switched on.
Watson took a couple of chances including a long range with the keeper too far off the line, but I didn't particularly see anything from him that suggests he's moved forward. We'll see.
Singh looked confident, got involved and had enough presence to suggest he's grown into it all a bit more and is probably ready for some game time.
Mullen very solid, in both meanings of the word. Big unit doing a tidy job.
Fox looked good.
Otherwise a lot of non-starters, academy kids who aren't ready, or players who showed much the same as last season (Ridenton and Parkhouse, though, looked a notch above the others not already mentioned. Ridenton seemed to be combining well with Finkler and involved in play).
Darije looked like a man not to argue with. Reasonably animated a few times with instructions to players.
Particularly when the better Nix players were still on, the side played with a lot more intent, pace and game control than in this fixture last year (which was worringly slow paced, messy, and lacking intent, I thought back then).
And the selection side looked pretty tidy, played some good football, had some good pace and gave them a decent run.
Reasonably encouraging, particularly with the front three starters missing.
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