Dover boss Chris Kinnear has proved he’s not about to wrap his players up in cotton wool ahead of Saturday’s Vanarama Conference clash at Macclesfield Town.

The players trained ‘hard’ as Kinnear described it on Monday night before the boss gave plenty of them a ‘run’ in Tuesday night’s Kent Senior Cup win against Faversham Town at Crabble.

Tom Wynter and Tom Murphy, who both started in Saturday’s 2-0 league win against Chester at Crabble, lined up against Faversham.

Another five players, Stefan Payne, Nathan Elder, Jake Reid, Liam Bellamy and Sean Raggett, who were all on the bench on Saturday, also started.

There were also returns from injury for Luton Town loanee, midfielder Solomon Taiwo, and big defender Sean Francis.

Francis was making his first start since picking up a groin injury in the 2-1 win against Eastleigh at Crabble on August 23.

Kinnear said there was a reason behind why so many of his squad featured against Faversham.

He said: “Playing in this league (Vanarama Conference) is very demanding – the players have got to be so fit to handle it.

“That means you have got to take every chance you can to work on that (fitness) and having a game like that against Faversham provided one.

“It was, what you can say, a good blow out for them all, especially after they had worked hard on Monday night.”

While the majority of his squad are fit and healthy, Kinnear did say two of his players, defender Tyrone Sterling and midfielder Matt Lock, who both missed the Chester game, won’t be making the trip to Macclesfield.

They are still carrying injuries and the boss said it will be a ‘week or two’ before they will be back.

As for the game against ninth-placed Macclesfield, it will be the second meeting between the sides this season after the Silkmen won 1-0 at Crabble last month.

Kinnear said he was keen to square the ledger this weekend. He said: “We dominated for long periods of that game but just couldn’t convert our chances. We’ve improved since then and we’re on a good run. We are determined to ensure that continues.”

o Luton Town have recalled striker Ricky Miller from his loan spell with Dover.

Miller had scored five goals in 10 appearances for Whites, since joining at the start of September.

He scored on his debut for Chris Kinnear's side in the 4-1 Vanarama Conference win at AFC Telford United.