Chester FC joint manager Bernard Morley spoke warmly of the club’s trialists and young players after the 1-0 win over Ramsbottom United.

The Blues continued their busy pre-season schedule with a trip to Harry Williams Riverside Stadium last night and emerged victorious thanks to John Pritchard’s second half penalty .

Blues bosses Morley and Anthony Johnson named a starting XI which contained three trialists, which included one playing in defence and two centre forwards.

And though the Blues management team will not analyse performances at such an early stage of pre-season, Morley was pleased with the impact those players on trial made.

“I’ve just said to the lads in there, we’re not going to start analysing performances on such short notice,” he said.

“It’s all about getting the miles in the legs, getting that togetherness, getting to know each other’s games, getting to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and trying to apply it on the football pitch which, at times, weren’t great.

“But again, we’re not going to analyse too much on that and we kept a clean sheet and basically got off to a good start.

“I think they (the trialists) did alright. Again, they’ve come into a changing room where they’re not familiar with faces and obviously don’t know each other’s strengths and weaknesses, so the way they applied themselves, they worked hard. They worked hard from the front, especially the two centre forwards.

“I thought (Trialist A) did really well coming in, it’s the first thing he’s done in pre-season, at centre half, I think he did really well. I thought he dictated and his experience showed through come the end.

“The two centre forwards, again it’s tough when you’ve not done anything. The pitch didn’t help with long grass.

“Apart from that, I think it gives us that platform to build upon and hopefully see them again in Thursday on training and see if they’ve improved in terms of fitness.”

As well as the performance of the trialists, products of the highly successful Blues Academy came off the bench during the second half.

It included the likes of Nathan Brown, Cain Noble, Matty Thomson, Alex Downes, Rhain Hellawell and Iwan Murray.

And with a limited squad of senior players at their disposal, Morley stressed the important role the young players will have at the Blues this season.

He said: “The youngsters are going to be a massive part of what we’re doing going forwards.

“We’ve been really pleased with them. They work hard, they get stuck, everything you’d probably want out of a youngster. Everything you don't think a youngster could give, they give us.

“We’ve only got 12 senior players at the minute, so they’re going to be an integral part of what we do going forward.”