Dartford manager Tony Burman says his side will reap the benefits of their testing pre-season schedule once the season starts.

Dartford lost their opening friendly 3-0 to a strong Southend side at Princes Park on Monday and will host Gillingham tomorrow (Friday), Millwall on Tuesday and then Football League newboys Crawley next weekend.

Burman (pictured) said: "We wanted hard games to start the pre-season off and we have got them. We’ll be much stronger for it afterwards.

"Once these four games are out of the way, our fitness will hopefully be right up and we’ll find the rest of pre-season a whole lot easier."

Darts lost to Southend for the first time in their four meetings after a late blitz from the visitors in a game which featured several substitutions.

Burman said: "We wanted to give the majority 45 to 60 minutes and we managed to do that.

"It worked OK but we did not have the sttrength in depth to be able to do what Southend did and change all 11.

"The most important thing was that it was still 0-0 after more than an hour against a pro side."

He added: "We want to make it difficult for Gillingham. It’s hard work playing against pro sides for an hour. It’s all about getting the minutes in but we also want to test our quality against pro teams."