Gillingham striker Josh Andrews took another step closer to full fitness with a goalscoring midweek outing - but the manager’s remaining cautious.

Andrews has had an injury-hit time at the Gills ever since he was signed at the end of the January transfer window earlier this year. It was only his fifth start for the club on Tuesday night in the EFL Trophy match at Stevenage.

Manager Mark Bonner played striker for the first 45 minutes before taking him off in a pre-planned move. It was a half which had seen him hassle the home defence and score with a well-hit shot from the edge of the box.

His only other goal for the Gills came in a 3-0 win over Barrow towards the end of last season, in what was his first start for the club.

Bonner said: “I’m really pleased for him but not really putting too much pressure on the next part, we’ll just see how he copes, we can't assume ‘oh that's him now, he's back’ because he isn't.

“It was a good night to just get 45 minutes. I think he could probably have gone back out for a little bit longer but we're not into taking that risk at all.

“He played well, he's worked really hard in the last few weeks in the moments that he's trained and his goal was brilliant. It was a heck of a finish, a really, really good goal.

“It's a big one for him really and obviously if we can continually build him up and have him available, he's a good option for us.”

Andrews has completed only one full game for the Gills, at the end of last season, but started the current campaign with an injury he picked up in pre-season and has been on a reduced training programme to build up his stamina.

Andrews came off the bench in the previous three games after a month out and Bonner’s already admitted it will be a slow-burner to get the 23-year-old 6ft 5inch striker 100% fit.

The Gills manager said: “I thought he did a really good job and looked a good impact for us on Saturday (against Port Vale) when he came on.

“I think people know what he can do, he's just been unable to do it for a long period of time, so we've changed how we're doing things with him and adjusted things.

“That's just another step along the way to try and get him back contributing to games. I think there were moments of that which were good, but you can't get away from the fact there's a difference in the intensity sometimes from those nights to a league game, but that's just another nice step for him.

“It was a really well-timed game because we're not protecting him from anything at the weekend to keep him safe so the way the fixtures have fallen works really kindly for us.

“I think if we had a game on Saturday we probably wouldn't even have involved him (on Tuesday) but it just helps us plan a little bit and get a little bit of work into him, so hopefully he comes through that okay.”