Gary Brabin was "delighted" with the workout against neighbours Cambridge City in Saturday's 2-2 draw.

It was a more familiar-looking United as Danny Potter, Wayne Hatswell and Mark Beesley all made their first appearances following operations, and although they had to come from behind twice to equalise through Dan Gleeson and Chris Holroyd, Brabin was pleased afterwards.

"It was a brilliant workout," he said. "There were a few things I wanted to work on today and at times I was really pleased with it. It was a good, competitive game and it steps up our training a bit."

Although pleased to welcome back three of the senior players, he urged caution as they take their first steps along the comeback trail.

"I've got to be careful with them all. I've looked after Hats and Pottsy as well as I can after serious operations; they've both carried a double hernia since before Christmas last season and they've had operations so we've got to be careful what we do with them.

"Mark Beesley has come back from an injury as well and I was tempted to play him for longer but I didn't want him to play more than 20 minutes really. We're assessing everyone individually and it's important that they all get minutes under their belt as well as trying to work on a few things as well.

"We'll come away from this with things we need to work on, but overall I was delighted with the performance and attitude of the lads."

Dan Gleeson scored the first goal and set up the second for Chris Holroyd and Brabin spoke highly of the full-back: "I've told Dan he can be anything he wants to be; I think the Wembley game summed him up because he was outstanding there.

"He probably thinks I'm on at him a bit but I just think he has so much more to offer. Sometimes he plays within himself but today he was outstanding."

Brabin is keen to sign trialist defender Rhys Day, who made his debut today, and re-sign midfielder Daryl McMahon but knows that players will have to leave before he can do so: "We know all about Rhys Day and he's the type of centre half we're looking for.

"We've just got to keep doing things and believing that someone might come in with something so we're ready to sign people. We've got two players here training with us that we're desperate to sign."

McMahon played in a new position on the right of the front three and looked effective there, prompting Brabin to say, "Daryl McMahon can play any position and he's another quality player who's in the same boat. He's aware of the situation and he's keeping fit playing with us, he'd love to come back to us and if we could they're two players we'd love to sign."

The manager also declared himself unperturbed at the lack of goals so far from the strikers, with Holroyd the only one of the recognised senior strikers to find the net so far this pre-season.

When asked about their form, he replied, "Mark Beesley has only played 20 minutes, Danny Crow has only played 45 minutes and another 30 today, and that was Lee Phillips' first 60 minutes of football today after playing 45.

"Obviously it's great when they're scoring goals, but remember this time last year all our forwards were scoring goals but they couldn't find the back of the net come the start of the season. So in a way I'm glad we've kept the reins on them."

[Match Report] [Fixture List]

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