The first four friendlies of the summer have seen the players rotate between 30 and 60-minute appearances, with some getting 90 depending on shape and opposition.
Manager Paul Simpson suggested this week that things could be about to step up, with more players expected to get more minutes, starting with this weekend’s meeting with a Newcastle United under-21 side at the Gateshead International Arena on Saturday [kick-off 2pm].
“We’re now getting to a point where we’re looking at 90 minutes for players over the next two or three games,” he confirmed. “We have Saturday, Chorley next Tuesday, and then it’s Dundee United at home.
“There are three games coming up now where we want to get 90 minutes into the lads as much as we can, just so everybody is ready for the start of the season.
“We’ve had four who have done it already, but that’s probably been based more around the positions we wanted to fill out on the pitch than anything else.
“If we’ve had areas of the pitch that needed to be covered for the full game, that’s what we’ve done.
“We got away with it on Tuesday because Corey [Whelan] had a bit of a tight hamstring, and I was quite willing to go for the last few minutes with ten men against Livingston.
“There’s every chance at some point this season we’ll be down to ten men, but I asked him how he was, and he said he wanted to carry on.
“But up to now the four who have had 90 minutes has been about the positions they were playing and about who else has been involved in games, and where they’ve all had minutes.”
“I think they’ve all done well,” he added. “I thought Jordan Gibson and Jon Mellish got through the 90 minutes fine at Workington, and Corey and Jayden Harris handled it well on Tuesday.
“We’ll look at what we want to do with the players as we get towards the weekend, we’ll assess who has had what amount of minutes so far, and we’ll take it from there for what we think will be another very good game.”
