Gillingham manager Neil Harris reacts to their pre-season win at Folkestone Invicta

Manager Neil Harris admitted the hard work during the week had an impact on his team’s weekend performance.

Gillingham won Saturday’s friendly 2-0 but those goals came in the second half against a weaker Folkestone XI and Harris knows the team will get sharper as the pre-season progresses.

“Of course we are rusty,” he said after the match. “I thought some of the players looked extremely leggy, we had a really tough week, worked extremely hard over the previous 48 hours and that’s why we looked leggy at times in the running sense of things, but just to get the boys out there and see some of the young lads perform well, I am really pleased.

“It’s nice for the boys to have a positive, nice for the fans that have travelled to support us, to see a positive as well. I would have liked to have seen a bit more quality at times, we are asking them to play a bit more football this year and we are early stages obviously. It is going to take us a good period to get up and running, especially with so many changes to the squad, and more to come.

“The game was about match minutes, managing Scott Kashket, I took him off after 30 minutes and that was always the plan to take him off, he wasn’t injured or anything like that, he came in quite late and to get him 30 minutes was important and ultimately that is what these games are for.

“It is for Cugs (the Folkestone manager) to get minutes into his players and me to get minutes into mine.

“Results are relevant, it is always nice to get a couple of goals and a clean sheet, but it is just about getting the boys through the minutes.

“Training has been immense, the staff, what they have put together, with training regimes, physical regimes, enjoyment factor for the players, they have been