Dover were made to work hard for their win at the weekend and that was just fine for boss Andy Hessenthaler.

In what was Dover’s first pre-season challenge, Hessenthaler’s new-look squad got the work-out they needed and a winning result was a welcome bonus.

Goals either side of the break from Jordan Higgs and Arjanit Krasniqi completed a 2-0 win at Crabble on Saturday against the League 2 visitors.

Hessenthaler said: “It is always nice to win games but it is not important at this stage of pre-season, it was our first run-out, but we had five sessions (of training before that) and we knew we would be chasing the ball quite a bit.

“They were a League 1 side last year and a League 2 side this year and that is good for us. We worked on going to press, that is my game, that was me as a player, I wanted to press the ball, we did that, we were sensible at doing it, we did it at the right times.”

Higgs robbed Gills’ new defensive signing Elkan Baggott to score the first while Krasniqi found the top corner from a free-kick early in the second half.

Hessenthaler, who has made 10 new signings this summer, said: “The first goal was sit off, set the trap and then get after the centre-half. Jordan Higgs nicked it off him and scored the goal.

“It was a great work-out for us.

“We played a certain shape on Saturday but is that our shape going forward? With the players we have got it could be but certainly we will be looking at difference shapes and we will find the right shape for the group of players we have got.”

Dover’s pre-season campaign heads to Deal Town tomorrow (Tuesday) night. It’s a 7.45pm kick off at the Charles Sports Ground.