Cove Rangers manager Jim McIntyre was encouraged by his first friendly in charge.
The League One champions faced Dunfemline Athletic at the Balmoral Stadium in Stuart McKenzie’s testimonial and were defeated 2-0.
McIntyre had only had two training sessions with the Cove squad prior to the fixture and has not yet been able to make any signings.
But he was taking plenty of positives from the game against the Pars.
McIntyre said: “It was a great exercise for us because Dunfermline have been back two weeks.
“You could see that their fitness levels were higher than ours which I expected so we had to work extra hard.
“They had a squad where they could change 10 different players and that will stand us in good stead because we were using 13 outfield players.
“A lot of them got 90 minutes so that will do us the world of good.
“It’s important to see the players and different options in different formations.
“We asked two or three players to play out of position just because we don’t have the bodies and an injury to Shay Logan which meant we were limited.
“It was good to get the players on the pitch, you could see we were tiring in the last 25 minutes and we were making some sloppy mistakes.
“We had to deal with a lot of counter-attacks because our final bit wasn’t there, but I don’t expect it to be there in the first game.
“We’ve had two training sessions and I was delighted with the effort which was excellent.”
Credit to his profession
Although they have only spent a week working together McIntyre also paid tribute to testimonial man McKenzie.
The goalkeeper has spent 12 years with Cove and McIntyre added: “Stuart’s a credit to his profession, the club and his family. To stay at the club the length of time he has is great to see.
“He’s been on the journey with the club right through the leagues along with a couple of the other Highland League lads.
“Stuart deserves all the credit, it was his special day, him and his family and it was great the Cove supporters came out and gave him a rapturous applause.”