Gillingham manager Neil Harris joked that his pre-season hopes of keeping a lid on expectations weren’t helped by Saturday’s fantastic win.

Robbie McKenzie’s late goal clinched a 1-0 victory for the Gills against a Stockport side that lost last season’s play-off final and went into the new campaign as a team many are tipping to win the title.

Harris has tried to keep a level of expectation of what his team can achieve this season after a fine end to last season and some good summer business on the transfer market.

Following Saturday’s win, he said: “That’s not going to dampen expectation levels is it?!

“That’s what I tried to do in the week, to match perspective against expectation, but for 38 minutes (in the first half) we were excellent, we absolutely dominated the game with and without the ball.

“We lacked a little bit in the final third, that penetration was missing, then we knew Stockport would come out second half and be better and they are such a clever team, Dave (Challinor, the manager) is such a good coach that they work out how to create overloads, they have so many good players that can affect a game, and they did.

“First half our shape dominated and second half for 20 minutes their shape dominated. I decided to change to a back five (from 4-2-3-1), just to give us a little bit more support, but rather than sit in and do it, we put on another centre-forward as well to try and stretch the game and be an attacking threat and ultimately it made us better.”

Stockport almost grabbed a late goal themselves when Kyle Knoyle hit the crossbar but it was a free-kick from Cheye Alexander on 86 minutes that led to the winner - and not a great delivery either, admitted the boss.

He said: “I thought the winning goal would be either through a really good goal from a moment of magic or a counter-attack, but to score like we did, we had fortune in it of course, it was a terrible free-kick from Cheye but it finds Robbie’s feet and sometimes you need those moments of luck.”

Stockport went close a couple of times in the second half and Paddy Madden had the ball in the net but was flagged for offside.

Harris said: “I saw the flag up straight away so I wasn’t panicking but I was really content.

“I was delighted at half-time, I am not saying that was me happy and accepting it (at 0-0), but the fact that we dominated that half of football, I was delighted.

“When we got to 70 minutes and took control of the game again and adapted to the shape I was delighted, when we scored I was delighted, I was content.

“If we had conceded and it would’ve been a point, I wouldn’t have been happy, but I would have accepted that they probably deserved a point out of the game, I was really relaxed.”

What delighted the management was the impact from the substitutes, particularly after changing the formation with 70 minutes gone.

Harris said: “It’s always nice to have that impact off the bench and after I spoke to the group Livers (the assistant manager) wanted to talk about the impact from the bench and the fact the lads came on and made an impact.

“I thought Max Clark was outstanding at left-back when he came on, a player who was really unlucky to miss out in the starting XI. Robbie McKenzie comes on and scores, Ashley Nadesanwent on and was arguably our best player on the pitch for 25 minutes.

“Jayden Clarke did extremely well for a player who is making his second or third appearance.

“We knew we were light, we looked at our bench and looked at Stockport’s bench and knew there was a contrast in options available and that’s just down to me, while players are coming back from injury and doing more on the transfer market, to get the best from the group.”