Bobbie Goulding and the sizeable Hornets contingent were dealt a rather large dose of reality at South Leeds Stadium yesterday.

A well-drilled Hunslet side took full advantage of Hornets lack of cohesion and sent their fans home celebrating like the Arriva Trains Cup was in the bag. Obviously settled and already ticking over nicely thanks to a solid season’s build-up, Hunslet started like a house on fire.

Nifty passing found winger Martin Sykes on hand to open the account after a minute. For the next half hour, a series of Hunslet raids ruined by their own poor handling was only punctuated by a Lee Birdsey penalty - and after Danny Wood notched a try himself and had set up one for Paul Seal - that looked to be Hornets only real chance of avoiding the nil.

18-2 at half time and Hornets looking every inch a team that’s never played a competitive game together (indeed, new centre Ashley Westmore had only had his first session with the side on Saturday).

The second half began in bizzarre fashion as Hunslet scored one of those freak tries that can really ruin your afternoon. A steepling kick off was lost in the sky by Lee Birdseye, the ball bounced point first in open field and, as the Hornets defence scrambled to recover, Hunslet’s Wayne Freeman gathered on the run and sent in Jamaine Wray.

This jolt - and the introduction of Sam Butterworth - seemed to be enough to kick Hornets into life. As the second half drained away in a series of dropped passes, scrambled tackles and pedantic refereeing decisions, Hornets’ defence slowly tightened up.

Indeed, as Hunslet found it increasingly difficult to break down the Hornets line, Butterworth and Birdseye began moving the ball around wih more purpose. Reward came after 70 minutes when a bustling break up the right by Mark Costello was supported by high-speed Liam Williams. Costello’s neat reverse pass put Williams into space and that was all he needed to leave the Hawks’ defence in his wake as he sprinted in to score.

Final score 24-8.

Having swallowed the bitter pill, Bobbie Goulding was pretty forthright in his view of things.

“I don’t want to harp on about ‘we’ve only had this much time’,” he said. “... it is a level playing field out there and I don’t want excuses. If I start excuses now then, bloody hell, wait to a quarter or half way through the season. Hunslet were smarter today - they were the better team.”

He went on: “We just never did anything with the ball to be truthful. We played dumb. I was one of those days at the office, wasn’t it? Nothing went right for us - too many knock-ons, our kicking game wasn’t good. They out kicked us, they out smarted us. A good result for Hunslet.”

But behind the obvious disappointment, it was a good result for Bobbie Goulding and Hornets too. We said a month ago that if Goulding got us to 3.30 at Hunslet, he’d have worked a miracle.

Well, that’s over now and the hard work of turning this side into a real team begins. And from what we’ve seen so far, I’d back Bobbie to do it.