PHIL Toogood is looking for Halstead Cricket Club's players to show they have learned lessons from their mistakes of last year as they bid to bounce back from a disappointing defeat today.

Halstead's director of cricket felt the club's first-team lost a game they should have won when they were beaten in a tense finish by local rivals Haverhill in Marshall Hatchick Two Counties Championship division one.

The visitors snatched victory on the penultimate ball of the final over, but Toogood felt it was a game where Halstead's success should have been wrapped up well before the end and he is demanding better when they host Copford at Star Stile today.

He said: "From my point of view, it was a bit samey from what we saw last year.

"I thought the players had learned the lessons from that when we had experiences of games we lost that we should have won.

"We were in a position more than once in the game when we could have grasped the win, but we didn't.

"Haverhill batted quite well, but player-for-player and with the exception possibly of one of their batsmen, I felt we were a far stronger team.

"I know they won't appreciate me saying that but I honestly felt that way.

"We'll have nets ahead of the game against Copford and I'll have a debrief with senior players when we'll look at what we can learn from the experience.

"I know we have a young team, but there are only so many times you can say that they are young and the truth of it is that they have been together for quite a while now.

"They also socialise together a lot so it's not as if they are a team of people who come together and then all go their separate ways like at some clubs, they are a core of players who are good in each other's company and I'd expect them to be better than that.

"A prime example was leaking runs where we shouldn't have done and we just didn't bowl in the right areas - it was in complete contrast to the way that we played in our previous game against Hadleigh.

"It was the same as last year as we didn't take the opportunities that we had to bury Haverhill.

"We should have put it to bed and that's the mentality that we must have.

"I definitely want to see more of that and I need to see the team can feel that.

"It's still too early in the season to say whether this is a blip or a trend but we don't want to get in the habit of losing again.

"I was immensely frustrated after the Haverhill game.

"It's one of three or four in a row that we should be expecting to win comfortably and I now think the Copford game is a must-win one.

"We have to make sure we have the right mentality for it."

Toogood said he expected to be able to name a strong team for the visit of Copford.