Tony Mowbray says he can’t fault the effort of his players ahead of their second pre-season friendly at Port Vale tomorrow.

The Rovers players have been put through extensive fitness work since returning to training on June 24, but the matches start to take precedence from now on.

Tomorrow’s trip to the Potteries is the first of five games in the space of 14 days, including home matches against Premier League duo Liverpool (Thursday) and Everton (July 26).

Those matches are when we are likely to see some of the senior players given extended run-outs, with the Vale Park fixture set to see a separate Rovers XI in each half.

That was the case in last weekend’s win at Hibernian, with a number of young players handed opportunities given the injuries to more senior names.

The likes of David Raya, Paul Downing, Ben Gladwin and Dominic Samuel weren’t risked at Easter Road, but are likely to get their first run-out of the close season against the League Two side who have just returned from a week-long training camp in Ireland and finished 20th last season.

Rovers’ main fitness work was built up during their trip to Austria last month, and Mowbray has no complaints about the players’ dedication to the training drills.

He said: “The lads are working extremely hard as I would have expected.

“The spirit of the group is really strong.

“I am looking forward to the pre-season games now and seeing what comes on the grass because obviously there will be things that we need to sort out and adjust and so let’s get started.

“Where they really get fit though is through playing pre-season games.”

Goals from Craig Conway and Willem Tomlinson handed Rovers victory against a Hibs side who were playing their third friendly.

New signings Joe Rothwell and Jacob Davenport started the game as part of a fluid midfield which included Lewis Travis and Corry Evans.

Mowbray is likely to make decisions on the availability of the club’s young players within the next couple of weeks.

So Travis, along with Joe Nuttall, Scott Wharton and Tomlinson are set to be given another chance to show what they can offer.

That is part of what Mowbray believes are more balanced pre-season fixtures which will provide his side with a better level of opposition than 12 months ago.

In Morecambe, Grimsby Town and Carlisle United they faced three League Two outfits in 2017, their highest level of opposition after Sparta Prague who they met in their second match.

With five more matches to fit in before the new season gets underway in three weeks, Mowbray will step up the minutes handed to players, as well as the messages he’s trying to instil ahead of their Championship return.

And he hopes to continue with the momentum built up from last season’s promotion.

He added: “It is a busy part of any season, you are trying to work to get the players fit and to try and make sure they understand how it is going to work this year and what you have to do on the grass to get in the team and whatever you did last year is finished.”

The fixture has been brought forward to 12.30pm to avoid a clash with England’s third/fourth place play-off with Belgium at the World Cup.

Port Vale, who finished 20th in League Two last season, have added 12 new signings this summer and drew 1-1 with Evo-Stik outfit Kidsgrove last weekend.