Michael Duff | The chances we created were a real positive

Head coach Michael Duff felt his Swansea City side had taken a positive step in terms of creating chances in the final third following their latest pre-season friendly against Bristol Rovers.

The home side had numerous chances in their only home friendly before the Championship season kicks off here against Birmingham City on August 5.

Jerry Yates, Jay Fulton, Liam Cullen and Ollie Cooper were all denied by good pieces of goalkeeping, while Yates also put another opportunity agonisingly wide of the post.

Aaron Collins and Luke Thomas had sights of goal for Gas, but – after the two sides had rung the changes in the second half - it was Jevani Brown who would net the opening goal of the game with a far-post header with 15 minutes to play, before John Marquis nodded in a second in stoppage time.

Duff acknowledged his side had not been as clinical as they would like, but was pleased to see them craft a number of scoring opportunities.

“Result aside, we were much improved from Friday. I thought we were a lot cleaner in our forward play,” said the Swansea boss.

“We should have been out of sight with the chances we had, we had many, many good chances.

“Some of it was us not being clinical enough, and some of it was good blocking from them.

“Then as the game goes on we gave a lot of young players an opportunity and the game becomes a bit disjointed, and that’s where the final result comes from.

“But in that first hour, I was far more pleased than I was in the last game.

“There are still 10 days to go until we start. We know we are short on bodies, the team at the end had five under-21 players in there.

“It’s needs must at the minute, so the main thing for me is more minutes into the legs.

“We learned quite a lot from Friday’s game, and it is up to adjust and adapt, and I thought that first hour was pretty positive.”