DESPITE the scoreline, Paul Hurst believes there was enough cause for encouragement in Grimsby Town's 4-0 pre-season defeat to Doncaster Rovers last night.
The Mariners fell behind with less than 20 seconds on the clock through Nathan Tyson, before the impressive League One side ran in two more first-half goals through Kyle Bennett and Theo Robinson.
Hurst was pleased to see a distinct improvement from his side after the restart, but that was not enough to prevent their South Yorkshire visitors from grabbing a fourth through sub Alex Peterson.
Speaking to the Telegraph after the final whistle, Hurst was in philosophical mood, pointing to the fact that Town are unlikely to come up against teams of Rovers' quality week-in week-out.
"Obviously there were things to work on but, overall, particularly in the second half, I thought we did very well and on another night, we would have at least got on the scoresheet.
"A couple of their goals were very, very good but the third and the fourth, from our point of view, were avoidable and that was disappointing.
"The one thing I would say is that we're not going to be coming up against that quality of opposition in our league and therefore, scoreline aside, I have to say that I was quite pleased.
"I think anyone who was there last night will have been encouraged by some aspects of our play and, taking the result out of it, and looking at who we were playing, will agree that it wasn't too bad of a night for us."
He continued: "Quite a few of our lads got 90 minutes under their belts last night, and that, above anything else, is the most important thing at this stage.
"The subs who came on did well and you can argue that it was a little bit easier as they had the fresher legs, but at the same time, I was impressed with some of the individual performances out there.
"We're looking to get a team together for the first game of the league season – that's the most important thing."