Playing against Wanderers, the visitors were behind 3-2 at the break before going down 5-4.

In a positive sign for United, newcomers Matt Job and Cooper Byrnes made outstanding contributions for the visitors.

Job scored a double on his debut while Byrnes was outstanding in goals.

Matt Johnson opened the scoring for Wanderers in the 10th minute before Job levelled it up seven minutes later off the back of a counter-attack.

Back-to-back goals to Hayden Dillon and Adam Skelton pushed the Wanderers out to 3-1 before Brad Gardiner nailed his shot from another Parkes counter-attack.

This saw United head to the break a goal behind the home side.

Wanderers extended their lead to two eight minutes into the second half when Luke Skelton showed off some speedy skills to score.

Parkes came back again, this time through Aaron Huppatz who slammed his short corner opportunity into the back of the goal.

Wanderers were up 5-3 with 14 minutes left on the clock after Johnson nailed his second for the day from a short corner.

Parkes, who only had the minimum 11 players, continued to fight and closed the gap to 5-4 with 11 minutes to go when Job scored his second off another speedy counter.

Discipline became a problem in the final 10 minutes as both teams had players given short breaks by the umpires but Wanderers managed to hold on for the win.

Parkes senior player Ben Hawken said his players had to be proud of their effort in a difficult season-opener.

“We had our backs against the wall,” Hawken said.

“We missed eight players from our starting line-up from the last game last year. 

“So to come up with a side and be competitive, it’s not a bad thing.”

Hawken admitted his team’s counter-attack was a key part of their game plan due to having no substitutes available.

“You can’t push blokes up and you can’t run subs to keep people running through the midfield, so the basic game plan was to compress defence and try and make them go wide and wait for an error and then we counter-attacked,” he explained.

“We had 14 players on Friday night and lost three the morning before the game.

“We’ve got a few young blokes coming through. 

“Our goalkeeper, it was his second game in premier league.

“It’s looking good.”

At the other end, Wanderers co-coach Peter Shea said his side needed to improve its defence.

“We conceded some easy opportunities to them and we can’t afford to do that. We’ve got to make it hard for teams to score. Hopefully that will evolve,” Shea said.

Parkes’ best was goalkeeper Cooper Byrnes in his second PLH game, performing well under pressure and making some strong saves.

ORANGE WANDERERS 5 (Matt Johnson 2, Hayden Dillon, Adam Skelton, Luke Skelton) def PARKES UNITED 4 (Matt Job 2, Brad Gardiner, Aaron Huppatz).