A sunny day, fans full of optimism, the start of the new season and an opponent from Yorkshire. All sounds pretty familiar, but unfortunately for Notts fans this is where the comparisons with the opening day clash with Bradford last season ended.
Notts went into the game fielding 4 debutants in the form of Rob Burch, Liam Chilvers (2nd spell at the club), Jon Harley and Ben Burgess and in fairness none of them will look back at it too fondly. The start of the game was an edgy affair with both teams struggling to control the ball most noticeably Stephen Hunt and even Huddersfield Town debutant, Joey Gudjohnsson (who controlled the game from the middle of the park) lofted a 60 yard pass into no-man's land. But not before long was Notts' lack of pace at the back sorely exposed when Forest loanee, Joe Garner broke through and should have scored but instead poke it wide of the far post with Rob Burch standing tall.
Huddersfield had a flurry of corners and the pressure that the Notts defence was withstanding finally took its toll on the 32nd minute of the action when a break from midfield from Huddersfield and when Stephen Hunt drifted infield alongside Liam Chilvers, he left Anthony Pilkington (who scored his first goal for Stockport against Notts) with acres of room to fire into the roof of the net and put Huddersfield into the lead.
From thereon in they never looked back and 3 minutes later it was 2 when a low cross from Joe Garner was allowed to enter the box and Rhodes got ahead of Graeme Lee to double the lead. From then on, as a contest it looked over and before Huddersfield scored a third, Joe Garner who was excellent throughout hit a shot on the turn which looped over Burch and onto the bar, much to the delight of the Notts fans.
Notts' best chance of the game fell to Hughes whose curving shot fell agonisingly wide. Huddersfield grabbed a third when after Neil Bishop charged down a shot by Pilkington, it fell straight back to his feet and drilled the ball into the net.
Not a fantastic start for Notts, which wasn't helped by poor refereeing. Notts never looked comfortable and let nerves get the better of them, before becoming submissive to the Huddersfield pressure from the Terriers 11 which contains vast amounts of Championship experience.