Impressive performance from George Hobbins after joining Stamford AFC from Skegness Town
There was disappointment in defeat for the Daniels on Saturday - but manager Graham Drury saw plenty of positives in the performance of recent recruit George Hobbins.
Hobbins was handed his first start in the home Southern League Premier Division Central clash against AFC Telford.
While a sprinkling of former Premier League and Championship players have started to drop down into step three of the non-league pyramid, Hobbins is rising up the rankings.
He was recruited from United Counties League Premier Division North side Skegness Town and impressed Drury with his all-action display.
The Stamford boss said: "I thought Hobbo was absolutely outstanding for a lad who has come up from step five to play against a team like Telford.
"He was brave in possession, wanted to get on the ball, made things happen, broke play up and his positioning was fantastic."
Hobbins' performance came alongside several other decent displays from the Daniels in their 3-1 home reversal where Drury felt his side had been taught some valuable lessons by the title-challenging visitors.
Stamford were pegged back after taking the lead before two second half goals from Matty Stenson secured the win for the Bucks.
Drury added: "There were some really good individual performances but it's the moments of us being in possession of the ball and on transitions that have cost us against Telford once again.
"They know that when they play against us it's about staying in the game because we want to win matches 3-0 or 4-0.
"I don't want that. I want to take a result at 1-0 and I want us to have learned our lessons and I'm afraid we didn't do that on Saturday.
"You don't always have to go and kill games off straight away because at some point Telford would have had to come forward at 1-0.
"It creates space and you've done that by being intelligent and sitting in and letting them come out and make mistakes so we can pounce.
"Their football intelligence won them the game and we can nick a game and it would mean exactly the same if we had won by three or four."
Attention now turns to the Lincolnshire Senior Cup on Tuesday night for Stamford who host National League side Boston United.
Drury plans to use the cup quarter-final as a chance to get minutes into players against a Pilgrims side who are under the interim management of Martin Wood following the departure of Ian Culverhouse.
Drury said: "All of my squad are good players and they all deserve to play football and it will be about getting minutes into some of them.
"I will decide what side to pick when I've settled down from this result to see which way we go from it.
"Do we try and get back on the winning trail and do we want two defeats on the trot or do I trust the group to win the game if I don't pick x, y or z?
"I did that at Gainsborough in the last round and we won on penalties and that's why I've got a good group of players.
"It might be a similar situation for Boston because if their interim manager wants the job then he'll want to keep winning games of football to say how can you take it from me.
"I don't know how they will approach it but all I care about is that we get it right because we do need to rest a couple with little niggles."
