Rotherham United added a friendly fixture to their list of workouts whilst out in Medulin, Croatia as they locked horns with Sky Bet League One outfit Fleetwood Town in a behind-closed-doors training game.
With a number of players kept out of the action to ensure their workloads were managed effectively, the two sides played out a 70-minute match on the Millers’ training pitches in Croatia.
It proved to be a useful workout against Scott Brown’s men with Georgie Kelly registering twice on the scoresheet, whilst faces new and old impressed in what was turned into a battling performance by some erratic weather conditions.
Kelly’s goals either side of the break came following good work from Conor Washington to create a poacher’s opportunity in the first half, before Peter Kioso’s high press and driving run saw him felled for a penalty, which the Irishman despatched expertly.
Millers boss Paul Warne said after the game:
"It's nice to get a game but there's obviously a few lads we couldn't do that for because we've suffered pretty severely with injuries this week. We're expecting a lot of those back next week.
"I'm really pleased with how it went. My intention was to play 60 minutes in total because we only really had 14 outfield players to select from but we ended up playing 70.
"It is probably the most competitive 70 minutes that the lads have had. You can train with intensity, but there were proper tackles going in - maybe even more than both managers wanted truth be told!
"Poor Haks [Odoffin] has come away having been caught with an elbow and his eye has swelled up but other than that, we've got through it without any more damage.
"The lads were obviously leggy because of the work that we've done out here. I asked them after the game how they felt and they admitted it, but I didn't want them to feel fresh, I wanted them to reveal a bit of character.
"I also want them to be fit and it's been a tough week. Tomorrow we'll do a lighter session with them in the afternoon and then give them a little bit of time off before we fly back Saturday morning. What we wanted from the game, we got."
Millers XI: Johansson, Wood (Bramall), Odoffin, Harding, Kioso (Humphreys), Barlaser (Hull), Lindsay, Rathbone, Bola, Washington, Kelly.
Fleetwood Town XI: Lynch, Johnston (Rooney), Nsiala (Holgate), Earl (Johnson), Andrew (Edwards), Batty, Boyle (Vela), G.Garner (Bird), Morris (Lane), Harrison (J.Garner), Conn-Clarke (Hayes).