By Mark Berry WISBECH Town manager Ian Jones admits that his team were awful in their first league game of the season but they went some way to making up for it with a useful draw on Tuesday. The Fenmen s poor 3-1 defeat at Haverhill Rovers on Saturday

By Mark Berry

WISBECH Town manager Ian Jones admits that his team were "awful" in their first league game of the season but they went some way to making up for it with a useful draw on Tuesday.

The Fenmen's poor 3-1 defeat at Haverhill Rovers on Saturday was the worst way in which to begin their Ridgeons Premier campaign.

But Jones intentionally picked the same side for Tuesday's local derby with King's Lynn and Wisbech came away with a creditable 1-1 draw.

It is nine years since Wisbech won their first game of the league season and they were 2-0 down within the first 15 minutes of their curtain-raiser at Haverhill.

A 65th minute header from Scott Cubberley reduced the arrears but Marcus Hunt's spot kick in the dying seconds of the game consigned Wisbech to a bad defeat.

But in their first home game of the season on Tuesday, the Fenmen produced a much-improved performance to entertain the Fenland Park crowd of 303.

Stuart Cobb gave the home side a dream start when he opened the scoring after just three minutes.

But back came Lynn and the talented Jack Defty levelled the scores from close range four minutes later.

Jones said: "I don't know what happened on Saturday but it is important that we work hard to make sure it doesn't happen again.

"It was an eye-opener for some of the lads and to be fair to them, they were keen to put things right before the Lynn game.

"I deliberately picked the same side and asked them to prove themselves on the pitch.

"On paper, Tuesday's result was a good one but having come away from the match I was disappointed that we didn't win. I definitely see the match as two points dropped rather than one gained.

"Lynn had one or two very good players in their side but I thought that we bossed the game for the first half an hour of the second half.

"They came back at us in the final stages and it was end-to-end stuff."

He added: "On the back of Saturday's game I have to be happy with the improvement we showed but we should really be picking up points against sides that are not going to be challenging for league honours."

Tomorrow (Saturday), Wisbech take a break from league action when they travel to Holbeach United in the FA Cup extra preliminary round.

But the Fenmen return to their league campaign with a tough home match against Soham Town Rangers on Tuesday.

Soham, managed by Ian Benjamin, mauled Newmarket Town 6-1 in their midweek game and Jones admits that his side are also keen to prove themselves against Holbeach, managed by former Fenmen boss Dick Creasey.

Any plans that Jones may have had to rest players for the Soham game have been dashed by the players' desire to play in the FA Cup match.

He said: "We have a very difficult game against Soham on Tuesday and if we get anything from that game it will be a good result.

"That game is a priority for us but some of the players have a message for the Holbeach management and they are desperate to play on Saturday.

"There will be no pressure on us at Holbeach and they will be hot favourites to win. It will be nice to get a result over them but the most important thing is that we put in a good performance."

Jones is likely to name a similar side to the one that played King's Lynn. However, Grant Rider is a doubt after picking up a shin injury.

However, Stuart Brown and Stuart Ablett will be available for the match.

Fenmen team (vs King's Lynn): 1 Chris Horton, 2 Jamie Muffett, 3 Jason Pease, 4 Paul Cousins, 5 Lee Day (capt), 6 Wayne Morton, 7 Lewis Cook, 8 Grant Rider (Lewis Thompson), 9 Stuart Cobb, 10 James McManus, 11 Scott Cubberley. Subs (unused): 12 Simon Oakley, 14 James Allen.