ANDY Forbes came in for some ribbing from his new teammates after becoming one of a hat-trick of Eastleigh players to score on their debut at Tonbridge Angels.

After netting 76 goals for Winchester City last season and attracting the attention of a posse of Football League and Conference clubs, 25-year-old Forbes is no stranger to publicity.

And even though he played only a late cameo role in Saturday's impressive 3-0 Ryman Premier opener at Tonbridge, he still managed to hog the spotlight, slamming home the rebound after the keeper had palmed away a blast by fellow sub Tyronne Bowers.

Forbes is shy by nature, but manager Paul Doswell laughed: "He's coming out of his shell. Our lads don't give anyone an easy ride and when he walked into the dressing room, they were all saying: 'That's it Forbesy, you get all the headlines again!'"

Paul Sales, the man who later made way for Forbes, set up Exeter City capture Martin Thomas to put Eastleigh ahead after nine minutes and it was yet another new signing, Winchester's Vase-winning skipper Danny Smith, who ran through unchallenged from a second-half sweeper's role to make it 2-0 in the 81st minute.

Doswell summed up: "It was an impressive win for us. Tonbridge will beat most teams at their place, I reckon. We had to defend for a lot of the game. It wasn't backs to the wall stuff for us, but it wasn't comfortable either. They had a lad clean through in the first minute, but our keeper Colin Matthews made a great save and games can turn on incidents like that."