The return from injury of Garry Richards was the biggest positive for Gillingham manager Andy Hessenthaler after Saturday's 0-0 draw with Croydon Athletic.

The defender, pictured, is recovering from an ankle injury and the Gills boss said: "It was tricky with the pitch being so hard and bobbly but he came on and handled it quite well.

"He’ll need a couple more weeks for games and he’ll then put himself in contention for getting in the side."

Making a good impression in the first team's final pre-season clash was young defender Connor Essam.

"He has certainly proved himself since the first part of pre-season and I thought he was tremendous," said Hessenthaler.

"We are fully loaded now on our fitness levels, the players have had a lot of minutes on the pitch and on a very dodgy pitch we made it look decent in the first half because I thought we passed the ball around well.

"Fitness levels have gone up and we’ve got a week now to really build. It was positive and we’re not worried about results."

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