WHILST boss Sam Allardyce was pleased with the physical effort expended by the players, he wasn't impressed with the display as Rovers were on the end of a 3-0 friendly defeat by Preston North End.
A first half brace from Paul Hayes was added to from the spot as Chris Brown notched a second half penalty to give the home side a comfortable victory.
"Obviously it wasn't great from a footballing point of view, but at this stage of the summer we are after our legs, we are after our fitness and match fitness," said Allardyce after the game.
"But I didn't expect us to make as many mistakes as we did.
"From a physical workout it was very good as Preston were very good indeed and played very well and deserved to win the game.
"Whilst we've got out of it from a physical point of view very good, but from a basics point of view, technically we weren't very clever."
At this stage of the summer results are far from the priority as Allardyce and his backroom staff work on the best methods for ensuring that come the season opener against Everton at Ewood Park on August 14th, he has a fully fit and ready squad to select from.
This has been one of the reasons why Rovers sent two first team squads to both Fleetwood and Southport at the weekend, the same which has occurred at Preston and will also at Huddersfield this Wednesday evening.
"With us mixing two teams up, having half the first team and half the young pros and the same again against Huddersfield we can get people as close to getting ninety minutes as quick as we possibly can.
"Fitness wise we've been looking pretty good, we trained the team pretty hard on Tuesday morning and the day before, so perhaps they were a little more fatigued than we would have expected.
"Normally I'd take it a lot easier, normally you would only see players doing 45-50 minutes. But we decided to get them to play as near to 90 minutes as quickly as we can is the way forward to getting our match fitness for the start of the new season."
Fans can pay on the door at the Galpharm Stadium on Wednesday evening. Prices are £12 for Adults, £7 for Students and Seniors 65 and over, whilst Juniors under 16 can see the game for £3.
