Gillingham manager Mark Bonner is expecting their toughest away test yet in the league when they take on Doncaster Rovers.
The Gills have won at Morecambe and returned with a point from Fleetwood, without conceding in either game, but Doncaster look to have taken their end-of-season form from last term into the new campaign.
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Rovers went on an incredible 10-game winning streak – ending with a draw at Gillingham – which was enough to clinch a place in the play-offs. They were eventually stopped by Crewe after losing on penalties in the second leg of their semi-final tie.
They’ve won both of their home games in the league so far this season, beating Accrington 4-1 and Morecambe 1-0, and Bonner knows it’s a massive challenge ahead.
He said: “I think it will be a good game. They’ve started the season well, as well. Their calendar year is pretty impressive.
“They finished last season unbelievably well, with the winning run that they had, and that momentum has probably followed them into this season.
“They’ve made changes to the team. They have got some different players in and they’ve had a bit of a change but probably the momentum that they’ve got and the way in which they work is fairly consistent, and a lot of the remaining players know that.
“(Manager) Grant McCann’s got a really good way with his players and the way in which they’ve developed their style, it’s really clear to see. They’ve started the season excellently.
“It’s a big pitch, a good surface, a nice big stadium, a great one. You drive up to those ones and you can’t not be motivated to play in them.
“There will be a good atmosphere, because it’s two good teams. Both teams will respect each other, because they know it’s two good teams, and therefore be a really good early test for two sides that have started well.”
The Gills sit top of the table after four games but it’s too early for Bonner to pay much interest in league standings.
He said: “You can get excited by good starts and league positions, but when I look at the table, I just see tons of teams on the same points.
“Realistically, anyone’s league position could change by about 10 places in one weekend. So at the moment, it’s pretty irrelevant.
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“Just trying to find some momentum in the season and develop as a team is the key thing, and try and string together some good results. We’ve done that. We’ve got to try and keep doing it again this week.
“I think the openness of this league is so apparent. Every week, I seem to be saying, ‘you can see why they’re one of the fancied teams’. I seem to be saying that quite often, which I think, by definition, just tells you what this league’s about.
“There’s loads of good teams. It’s going to be open for a lot of teams to fight for those places, but they’ll be in that same bracket as us, fancied, good starters and want to have a successful season.
“I think back to the end of last season and remember Grant after the play-off defeat, basically saying, if you don’t want to come back and win the league then don’t bother. Their intent for the season’s really clear.
“They’ve started as they’d have liked to. We know that away from home we’ve had some tough ones and this will be the toughest so far.
“This will be a running game. They play forward really fast. They’ve got pace that play beyond really quickly, and they transition to attack very fast.
“This is an athletic game and we’ll need to be quick, and we’ll need to be strong. We’ll need to be well organised in our defence and we’ll need to try to dominate spells with the ball and make sure we have a real good threat on the game as well, and get pressured to them in the right moment. I think it’ll throw up loads of challenges.
“How we start the game won’t be how we finish it in terms of personnel, but also strategy and style. That’s the exciting part of the moment, that we’re just working through with the players, constantly evaluating so that when this season really gets into the muck and bullets of itself, we’ve got loads of variety in the way we play.
“We’re still in a very much in the learning phase and we have to win while we’re doing it.”
*Gills will play Ebbsfleet United in the second round of the Kent Senior Cup on Tuesday, October 8 (7pm) ar the Kuflink Stadium.
