The Iron put in a battling performance on Friday night as they drew 1-1 with Championship side Bolton Wanderers.
After going behind early, United forged together some great opportunities, and could have quite easily won the game on another day.
Stephen Dawson was happy with the fitness levels throughout from the team.
He told The Iron PlayerHD: “I thought at times we played really well as a group. We were disappointed with the goal. For the first ten, fifteen minutes we didn’t get to grips with them.
“We played some lovely football at times, and we can improve. We said that in the dressing room afterwards, and all-in-all it was a very good draw against a very good Championship team.”
An injury at the back end of last season had set Dawson back a little, and he admits he is still trying to catch up with the rest of the team’s fitness levels.
He added: “The manager's been great, I’ve come in and had to miss one or two days and build back up the knee again, but the fitness is getting there – 70 minutes on Tuesday and 90 minutes today for the first time in a few months.”
Keen to push the way Iron manager Mark Robins has demanded his players to play this season, Dawson mentioned: “People tend not to look to much into pre-season but you’ve got to set your stalls out. The manager wants us to play a certain style of football – an attractive style of football, so as a group of players we have to demand that from each other.
“Our main focus now is just getting fit, winning every game – whether that’s in pre-season or even in training, and we look forward to Burton which is going to be a really tough game.”
With more pre-season friendlies to come in the next week, Dawson already has one eye on the big season opener on Saturday, August 8.
“We’ll look forward to Sheffield Wednesday next Wednesday, and then Notts County, and then we can really look forward to the main one – the first game away at Burton," he said.
"They’re a great group of lads and we’re all out to do well. The chairman has invested as you can tell, and we know as a group of players that we need to perform out there – and we need to do that week-in-week-out now.
“As a group we need to know now that a lot of teams will be going ‘these are one of the big teams in the league’ which is great because I believe once we get the ball down and play like we did against Bolton we can do really well.”
The Iron welcome Sheffield Wednesday to Glanford Park on Wednesday, July 29 for their final home friendly of pre-season, with kick off at 7.45pm.
See much more from Stephen Dawson on The Iron PlayerHD.