Darrell Clarke has confessed that there is still “a lot of work to do” following Bristol Rovers’ training camp in Spain, while maintaing a positive stance on the efforts of his players and staff so far.
Rovers spent last week in Murcia for some warm weather training before rounding off the camp with a friendly against League One side Stockport County on Saturday afternoon.
Darrell Clarke has confessed that there is still “a lot of work to do” following Bristol Rovers’ training camp in Spain, while maintaing a positive stance on the efforts of his players and staff so far.
Rovers spent last week in Murcia for some warm weather training before rounding off the camp with a friendly against League One side Stockport County on Saturday afternoon.
The camp was Rovers’ second full week of pre-season training with Clarke back as head coach, and reflecting on preparations so far, the Gas boss said to club media: “If you’re going to say to me that not just this week, but since I’ve come in the building that there’s a lot of new staff changes, there’s a lot of different ways that we’re structuring the work that the players are not used to but are going to get used to it, I would say that it has been a really positive day within the course of that.
“But I don’t kid myself as well, there’s still a lot of work to do, and we’ll keep progressing and keep working with the group.”
The Stockport friendly was Clarke’s side’s second match of their pre-season schedule ahead of the upcoming League Two campaign. A 2-1 win at Chippenham Town kicked things off and further matches against Bath City, Yeovil Town, Coventry City and Oxford United are in the calendar before the season starts at home to Harrogate Town on August 2.
After a bright start from the Gas, the Hatters turned the screw after a mid-half water break as Ollie Norwood opened the scoring from a free-kick while Kyle Wooton came close to adding a second soon after. Lewis Fiorini then doubled Stockport’s advantage early into the second half.
A composed finish from Dewsbury halved the deficit just after the hour mark and five minutes later, the 17-year-old set up Luke Thomas for an equaliser.
Although it was disappointing for Rovers to go on and lose the game, it was a worthwhile exercise for Clarke’s men.
“Listen, I want to win every game,” the Gas head coach declared. “I’m disappointed to lose the game at the end after we came back from 2-0 down, but like you said, there are positives to confirm that and a lot of things we need to work on.
“We have to react. You have to come from behind to get points and win games. We were 2-0 down and got it back to 2-2, but we’re disappointed with the goals. I think the first goal is a touch of class, obviously Ollie Norwood has got that in the locker, but we’re disappointed with the goals we conceded.
“But it is the backend of a really tough week. There are a lot of positives to take out of it, but also a lot of work to take out of it. I thought in the first half, we didn’t look after the transitions enough, didn’t take care of the first pass when we won it back and didn’t get as much control as I would have liked, but we’ll take that as staff because we’re at the early stages of what we’re trying to create here and work on.
“They had a bit more possession than I would have liked, but there were a couple of occasions where we have won it on the high press in the first half, and we’ve got to make sure it’s a better pass and we get a better opportunity. In the second half, we got the press right and we were ruthless on the transition, and we got our two goals.”
Rovers have two friendly matches back in England this week, starting at Twerton Park on Wednesday evening to face Bath before taking on Yeovil at Huish Park on Saturday in a match dedicated to Gas legend Marcus Stewart.
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