Gary McSheffrey was full of praise for the youthful side that saw Rovers through the second half of the win at Armthorpe Welfare in the first friendly of the summer.
Rovers triumphed 2-0 with both goals coming after the break through recent signing George Miller and youngster Jack Goodman.
Not wanting to risk players that were not fully fit heading into the game, first team manager McSheffrey opted to include nine members of the youth team, including Goodman, in the game and was delighted with their efforts.
McSheffrey on the performance and result:
“The first half performance was a bit sloppy, a bit scrappy and not really what we wanted.
“There were some good individual performances and I thought Liam Ravenhill was excellent throughout - the stand out player.
“In the second half, we got a goal at a good time. It looked better with George [Miller] and Reo [Griffiths] up there rather than just the one.
“We were going up the hill and we felt we could stretch the game a bit and play in behind and George did that well. Reo came into the game well.
“George got a good goal for us at a good time and then the kids saw the game out for us really well.
“I’m really pleased for Jack Goodman to get the really good second goal. It was a good move, how we liked to play and he took it well.
“The youth team have only done one day of pre-season so far so for them to come on and play half an hour, 45 minutes, was really good.
“We had to weather a storm for a couple of minutes. Louis [Jones] made a good save and cleared one off the line.
“To keep a clean sheet, we’re happy. We rode our luck a couple of times in the second half but we could have scored more too.”
On the goalscorers:
“They were really good goals for strikers.
“I love how George heads the ball. You see in training. He attacks the ball well with his head.
“And Jack Goodman is a finisher. He likes to be between the sticks and he can finish left foot or right foot, however it comes.”
On the workout of the first friendly:
“We did get that workout I wanted.
“I said to them at half time that it’s good to get the bad one out of the way because we were way off it in terms of how we’ve been practising how we wanted to play all week.
“The surface didn’t help because it was dry and bobbly. We have to remember that at Cantley we’ve got a nice, crisp surface to slide balls in behind and time things well.
“We have to adapt but adapted well and a win is a win.”
On pre-season so far:
“We feel the lads are really giving us lots on the training pitch and buying into what we do.
“I think we’ll be all right.”