SPITFIRES boss Lee Bradbury was pleased by his charges’ exploits in their first friendly – even if he admitted he is not the biggest fan of pre-season.

Former Bournemouth and Havant & Waterlooville manager Bradbury, who turns 47 today, began his first full season in charge at the Silverlake Stadium with a 3-0 win over ninth tier Abbey Rangers.

Goals from Ousseynou Cisse, Danny Whitehall and defender Michael Kelly were enough as the Spitfires deployed two different line-ups for each half.

Speaking to the club’s website after the game, Bradbury stated: “I enjoyed it – well, I say I enjoyed it, I don’t really like pre-season to be honest.

“As far as getting minutes into players, no injuries, and it being a competitive game, being played in the right way, (it was) great.

“We’ve come here today, created a lot of opportunities, should have won by a lot more. No grumbles from me – there’s a lot of room for improvement, but the lads worked hard.

“Just blow the cobwebs out really, for some of the players that haven’t played for a while, and getting used to each other on the ball.”

Whilst Eastleigh have largely focused on running drills during their first week of training, Bradbury believes the side were pleased to get back on the pitch and playing their football.

“Training has largely been running based, with a little bit of ball work so far,” he mentioned.

“The lads would’ve enjoyed getting the ball out and competing, and you could see that in some of the players today, I thought they competed very well today to be fair to them – it was a tough game for us.

“We’re still looking to improve, and bring in three or four more players in and there are some trialists there that I’ve had in and around for three or four days.

“So, we’re looking to improve, looking to get things right, and it gives me an opportunity to look at them, and see those areas that we can improve, we can speed up with the ball.

“That will come, the patterns are played that we want to get out, we can work on. But as far as effort, I couldn’t fault the players.”