Iron manager Mark Robins was pleased his side remained unbeaten throughout pre-season following a victory on penalties against Lincoln City.
United advance to the final of the Lincolnshire Senior Cup following the win, with attentions now turning to the opening day of the SkyBet League One season away at Burton Albion on Saturday, August 8.Two goals early on from Tom Hopper had put Scunthorpe in the ascendancy, but Alan Power reduced the deficit from the penalty spot before the interval. Matt Rhead then levelled the scores to sent the game to a shoot-out.
“It’s probably a blessing really that we didn’t run away with it,” he told The Iron PlayerHD.
“Early on in the game, I thought we were going to run away with it. We didn’t start the game brilliantly, but we got ourselves in front with two well-worked goals. They ended up getting a penalty and we took our foot of the gas and it’s probably a blessing.
“We didn’t lose, we won on penalties. We can focus on next week’s jobs, but there are things that need to be better for the future games. In general, we’ve had a decent pre-season and the reason for that isn’t just because of the results and performances from the games, it’s because we’ve not picked up too many injuries.
“We’ve hopefully got a fully fit squad to choose from next week. We’ve got players with different levels of fitness and they will get fitter as we progress. Fingers crossed and touch wood; nobody gets any problems this week.”
The Iron boss was happy his side continued the good work and football that has been seen over the course of pre-season, with him identifying a clear plan for the upcoming week ahead of the season opener.
“There will be issues to work on,” he continued.
“We will do that on a game-by-game basis. There’s nothing too much in particular other than our mindset. We produced two good goals and there was some good football; just not at the intensity that we’ve become used to.
“There’s been a quick turnaround of games in a short space of time and at an early stage of the season, so there are tired legs and we need to get used to that. The first week of the season we have a Saturday-Tuesday scenario.
“It’s food for thought. There’s a structure before the game next week on what we are going to be doing and it turns out that it is spot on from the game today. The things we need to be doing, we will be working on next week.”
See much more from Mark Robins, Tom Hopper and Niall Canavan on The Iron PlayerHD.