For the Iron’s incumbent captain Michael Collins, Saturday afternoon’s 7-1 victory over Brigg Town – United’s first game of pre-season – was a great run-out.
Scunthorpe fielded a different eleven in each half of the match; with them effectively winning the first period 5-0 and the second 2-1 to secure their rout over the local non-league side.“It’s important to get the first game out of the way,” Collins stressed to The Iron Player after the game.
“We’ve worked hard for the last ten days.
“Some of the sessions have been really difficult, but it’s the games that really test your fitness.
“They’re where you pick up your fitness.
“The first five minutes, I think you could see that we hadn’t played together for a while.
“But after that, we got on top.”
Collins also expressed his belief that throughout pre-season in general, United need to put in a series of confident, commanding displays so as to hit the ground running in the season proper.
And that was certainly something which Scunthorpe managed to begin on Saturday.
“It was important to get off to a winning start, because that’s going to be the emphasis this season,” he predicted.
“It’s well-documented that pre-season isn’t always about results.
“But from a player’s point of view, it’s nice to instil that winning mentality from the off.
“Winning becomes a habit.
“Once we got going (in the first-half of the win against the Zebras) we scored three superb goals, and looked very lively.
“Credit to the lads, because that was our first outing.”
See much more from Michael Collins, Andy Dawson and Brian Laws on The Iron Player.