Gillingham manager Mark Bonner was happy to get match minutes in the legs of his players following the 0-0 draw against Millwall at Priestfield.
After an intense start to the pre-season, Bonner was glad to finally put some of the work into in-game situations, with some passages of play pleasing the Gills boss.
The fixture saw the hosts field two different XI's for each half, with some players playing in unfamiliar roles.
Ahead of the third week of pre-season, the 38-year-old is anticipating another busy week, with consolidation of ideas being one of the main targets.
Thoughts on the game...
In the end, the game is about fitness. It is about getting 45 minutes of gameplay at the end of a busy two weeks. The lads have worked their socks off. We have bombarded them with information, so you don't expect everything to be really fluid at this stage.
You just hope that everyone can get through it. I think pretty much that they have. We will probably find out on Monday once they have recovered a bit from it. It was 45 minutes of work against a Championship team that are a week ahead of us and a game ahead of us. There were little bits in there that I was quite pleased with and lots of scruffy stuff, but that is to be expected at this stage.
It was a good afternoon in the end; not a beautiful spectacle by any means, but it ticks a box. One game down, and we will try to do it again next week.
Decision making with the team selection in the game...
[On Oli Hawkins at centre-back]: It was the two-elevens to start with. He has played a lot of games there as a league player.
We are a bit light in midfield. Lapo [George Lapslie] had a bit of a tight quad, so wasn't available. Alex Giles filled in midfield today and did all right. Robbie McKenzie filled in there because Ethan Coleman has a bit of an ankle issue, so he is a couple of weeks behind everybody else. Hopefully, he will get back on the grass at some point next week. He hasn't been in with the group yet. It just means having to shake people around.
Harry Webster has only done two days of training with us and played today. A really good right-back. That's what pre-season is good for, getting the young boys opportunities.
Assessment of the first two weeks of pre-season...
I've really enjoyed it. I think the staff and players have as well. They have found it very difficult. It has been tough physically, as everyone would expect in pre-season. That's normal, but they have worked really well. It is a good group of lads that want to do well.
When new people come in and ask different things of them, it's not easy to take on all of the information and to buy into things. We have seen some of that already, and we will only see an improvement as time goes on.
You can't talk about or work on everything in six or seven training sessions. We have seen some stuff, and when you do it in training, it is never as real as when you do it against an opponent, so they have done well these two weeks. Now, we can keep ramping it up.
What to expect in the week ahead...
They will get the day off on Wednesday, and we will work really hard on Monday and Tuesday. We will do an in-house 45 minutes on Tuesday as well as the other bits in training. Then, on Thursday and Friday, they will be pushed again.
Next week will be a lot more on defensive structure and counter-attack on Tuesday and Thursday. Then in possession work on Monday and Friday. We are trying to balance out the work between with and without the ball. They probably need a week of lots of football and not so much of me throwing information at them because they have had bucket loads of it over the last two weeks.
We need to try and consolidate some work rather than to keep adding things on. I have been really happy with how the new ones have settled in and how everyone has come together around the ideas we have put across so far.
