Rovers U18s manager Chad Gribble feels his side faced an array of challenges in pre-season friendly's against Newcastle United and Partick Thistle.
Gribble’s side took a 5-1 victory in their first game of the afternoon against Thistle thanks to a goal from Sam Brown and four from Jack Goodman before the latter added another to his tally in a 2-1 loss to category one Newcastle United.
The day consisted of two hour long matches for Rovers, and the U18s manager felt it provided the perfect opportunity for his side to get the matchday minutes needed and prepare for the start of the competitive season.
Gribble said: “I think we’ve had a really productive day and there were certain things we wanted to achieve. There have been more minutes in the legs of our players and we’ve done that.
“We’ve been fortunate enough to come through the two games unscathed and everyone’s fit and well moving into the next part of pre-season.
“We knew the games were going to provide two different challenges and we played two opponents with differing shapes and styles but I thought, for the most part, we dealt with it and solved the problems in front of us and that’s really good to see."
Rovers came from behind to take victory against their Scottish opposition and then took the lead against the Magpies as Gribble took the positives out of both games.
He added: “I thought we were really dominant against Partick after an initial poor start to the game falling behind, but it does highlight the importance of starting games properly.
“I thought we competed to a certain level against Newcastle for three quarters of the game but we just failed to see when a good opponent had control and how to see that spell out and find a way to get back on top.
“In the first half of that game I thought we were actually on top, so there’s lots of positives to take from both games.”