LONDON Lions manager Andy Landsberg claimed his team’s first defeat of the new season was a reality check.
The Lions saw their 100 per cent start in the Herts Senior County Premier League ended at Cuffley on Tuesday night.
Following successive five-star displays at Rowley Lane, the Lions were brought back down to earth on their travels.
Lions thrashed Hinton 5-0 at the weekend with goals from Josh Kennet, Benji Weinberger (2), Max Kyte plus an own-goal, and having won their opening day match of the season against Ware 5-2, they looked simply imperious.
But any prospect of the division being a walk in the park was extinguished after slipping to a late 1-0 defeat on Tuesday.
Landsberg said: “This was a wake-up call for us. We have realised that you don’t get to play every week at home on a nice playing surface. You have to grind out wins and we couldn’t do that.
“It was a kick up the backside and collectively we just did not get going. I don’t like losing any game, but at least it is early on and we can learn from this.
“It wasn’t for the want of trying and there was no complacency. We were happy to take a point, but we conceded in the 82nd minute. But maybe we didn’t deserve anything from the game as we just weren’t at the races.”
The Lions are back on home soil against Evergreen at Rowley Lane on Saturday and Landsberg expects an instant response.
He added: “Our goalkeeper Josh Trey was excellent and deserved a clean sheet on his debut. He was our standout performer, but that’s not something I really want to see every week.”