Tony Mowbray admitted there was a level of concern at having to name the team he did for the Leeds United friendly just 10 days out from the start of the Championship season.

Jake Garrett, Hayden Carter and Tyler Magloire all started against the Premier League side, with only two players in the squad, Thomas Kaminski and Darragh Lenihan, aged over 24.

Ben Brereton was the only player on the bench with a first-team start to his name, but to their great credit, the youngsters stuck to their task and were given a great ovation by the home crowd at the final whistle as they held the Premier League side to a 1-1 draw.

Connor McBride came off the bench to score with his first touch, a deflected free-kick putting Rovers ahead, the visitors levelling with nine minutes remaining as Pascal Struijk’s effort hit Lenihan on the way past the impressive Kaminski.

Rovers were without 10 senior players for the penultimate pre-season friendly as Mowbray continues to battle with unavailability issues in his squad.

“Concern? Yeah, lots of concern,” Mowbray said of the side picked a matter of days out from the Swansea opener.

“I’m not sure how many players we’ve got who’ve played a dozen senior games, 11 or 12.

“I know counting on my board seven or eight who you might call senior players were injured, it was a bit concerning the team we had to put out which is why we set up pretty defensively to make it difficult for them.

“I don’t think you can go toe-to-toe with a team like Leeds.

“They worked really hard, were disciplined, frustrated them for long spells and every now and then threw a punch of our own and asked some questions.

“We had a ridiculously young team, we knew we’d be out of possession a lot, we had to try and get them organised into a shape and work hard. Pre-season is about working hard and they did that extremely well.”

Daniel Ayala, Joe Rothwell and Harry Chapman were all absent from the squad on Wednesday night having started at Bradford four days earlier, while Lewis Travis missed out for a second successive match, this time through illness.

Joe Rankin-Costello, Scott Wharton and Bradley Dack are longer-term concerns, while goalkeeper Aynsley Pears is yet to feature in pre-season, with Bradley Johnson having been out since injuring his hamstring in the opening pre-season friendly at AFC Fylde.

Sam Gallagher is close to returning having stepped up his training since sustaining a calf injury on the opening day of pre-season, with Rovers looking to get bodies back ahead of the visit of Swansea City on August 7.