Dartford player-boss Ben Greenhalgh’s careful balancing act before start of the club’s Isthmian Premier season

Ben Greenhalgh is striking a careful balance ahead of the start of his first season in charge of Dartford.

With the big kick-off days away, the Isthmian Premier Darts have been eager to ramp up pre-season preparations.

They were 2-0 winners at lower-division Faversham Town last weekend but were left without a midweek warm-up fixture after scheduled visitors Chelmsford City pulled out due to illness in their squad.

The Darts conclude pre-season when they welcome Ashford United to Princes Park this Saturday (kick-off 1pm).

While player-boss Greenhalgh and his management team are now looking towards the best starting XI for the campaign opener, they remain keen to manage minutes, too, ahead of a busy start to the season.

Playmaker Greenhalgh said: “We’re definitely looking at that but it’s hard.

“We have got six [competitive] games in August. Originally when we looked at pre-season, we decided we were going to raise it for these games.

“You can ramp up the competitiveness but it’s hard to ramp up the minutes. We’re still managing the players.

“But we will probably try and treat Saturday, August 1, as though it’s our first league game. That’s the best way we can go about it.

“At the moment, we have 17 league games in the first three months of the season, which is a massive ask. As a manager, you want to go with your best team all the time.

“But it’s just something we’re going to have to manage.”

Strikers Dan Smith and Max Fiddes were on the scoresheet for the Darts as they claimed another pre-season win despite traffic problems ahead of kick-off at Salters Lane.

“There were a lot of positives,” said Greenhalgh.

“In pre-season, you want to contend with a lot of different circumstances. We did that against Billericay last week