Brad Halliday has praised Rovers’ defensive efforts in their goalless draw with Championship Derby County on Saturday.
New signing Josef Bursik and Louis Jones both had quiet halves in the goal and Halliday says that was down to a team effort.
“I thought Derby had a lot of possession so that obviously means we had a lot of time without the ball and I thought we defended really well,” he said.
“They had a lot of the ball first half and that’s probably because of the quality that they had on the pitch, but I thought we defended really well as an 11 and we made ourselves hard to break down.
“I think we limited the number of chances that they actually had.”
Rovers’ pre-season has been positive results-wise with wins at Scunthorpe United and Bradford City followed up by a draw at Championship Derby, but Halliday says it’s all just building minutes ahead of Saturday’s Carabao Cup fixture.
“It was tough playing a strong 11 from Derby and it was good to get back into the swing of things,” he added.
“Obviously it’s more minutes in the legs and we’re building towards our first game of the season which is next Saturday.
“I’m feeling better each week with more minutes in the tank. We’ve got Blackburn next week so we’re just building towards that. And playing that 75 minutes it helps just to get back to the matchday environment.”
