Daisy Hill will continue their pre-season campaign when they host Radcliffe at the Plumb Factory Stadum tonight (7.45pm).

The opening match of the build-up to the start of the season took place last Thursday night, when Daisy lost 2-1 to PC39, a team comprising players from the academy run by Pascal Chimbonda, the former Wigan Athletic and Tottenham Hotspur defender.

Daisy’s management team used the friendly to give every squad member some game time, and assistant manager Dave Turner said afterwards it had been a very worthwhile start to the pre-season programme.

“You don’t want rollovers at this stage of the season as you learn nothing from that, which is why we arranged the game,” said Turner.

“They were very good opposition, very direct, with good attacking players, so it was good to see how our players coped with one-v-one situations against good players who have played at a higher level.

“We got out of the game what we wanted. We used 22 players, two different teams in each half, we tried to mix the lads up as best we could, to look at players in certain positions.

“We were happy defensively with how we played, and they scored two very good goals, which were good individual finishes from very good players.

“It’s never going to be the end product at this early stage, but there were a lot of positives to take from the game, and it gave us plenty of food for thought.”

Tonight’s game against Radcliffe, newly-promoted to the National League North, will be a different type of test for the Daisy squad, and Turner says they will draw on lessons learned from Thursday’s game.

“Last Thursday has shaped our thinking on how to approach the Radcliffe game, and myself and Lee Hill (Daisy manager) have had a chat about that,” added Turner.

“I’ve worked at Radcliffe for the last two seasons so I know how good they will be.

“There will be young players who will keep the ball well, and will cause us different types of problems.

“They are in the same boat as us, even though the levels are different. They have players there who will want to impress and want to play more minutes.

“On our side, we won’t have as many substitutes as we did on Thursday as we are trying to manage the minutes everyone gets.

“But we will train again in midweek and those who aren’t involved in Monday’s game will get be involved on Saturday, when we host Welsh side Ruthin.”