Hackett challenges players

The newly-promoted Glassboys led the division in the early stages of the season but their challenge petered out towards the end of the campaign as injuries and poor form combined to derail their promotion push.

Hackett has been prudent in the transfer market over the summer but has managed to hang on to his key players ahead of today's big kick off - and is backing his side to improve on last season's finish.

"The aim is to improve on what we did last season," Hackett said.

"It is going to be a tough division and there will be no easy games for us but we're good enough to challenge again.

"We need to do the simple things right again and if we do that we'll have a chance."

Rather than making wholesale changes to his squad Hackett has only added two new faces - Lye youngster Karl Hadley and Ben Millingham.

The Stourbridge boss is pinning his hopes on the players who have returned from injury to be like new signings.

He has ear-marked Ross Collins, Jamie Rogers and John Williams to all have big campaigns.

"We haven't really made many additions over the summer. We are working on quite a tight budget but we have managed to retain the lads who played a big part last season so that is an added bonus for us.

"We have brought a couple of young local lads in but we're looking at the players who were out injured for large parts of last season to come in and be like new signings for us.

"Ross and Jamie both had mixed seasons through injury but hopefully they will be able to come back and make a difference."

Former Kidderminster striker Williams had a limited impact after joining the Glassboys last season but Hackett has high hopes of him making a splash this season.

"John wasn't really fit when he joined us but he has worked really, really hard over the summer to get fit and he will certainly be in better shape for the season.

"I've been impressed by the work he's put in and I think he'll be a big player for us."

Hackett's men have enjoyed a productive pre-season but did suffer a heavy 7-1 defeat to Halesowen in the early stages of the summer.

The Glassboys boss has dismissed that result as a blip and doesnÕt believe it will have any affect on their season.

"I think we have had eight games and been beaten once so it is not a bad record.

"We did get beaten by Halesowen but to be fair we were still at a very early stage of our pre-season preparations then.

"I think anyone who looks at pre-season and reads too much into it can end up looking foolish anyway," he said.

The Glassboys take on Rothwell today before clashing with Mel Eves' Willenhall, who were beaten play-off contenders last season.

And Hackett thinks that pair of games will be good tests for his side.

"Mel had some very good players last season so it will be interesting to see if he's managed to keep hold of all of them.

"They went close last season."