The Gills may have started their pre-season schedule with a defeat but Mark Stimson explains that at this stage of the season, his biggest priority is fitness: "I won't be losing any sleep over this game. I don't like losing, no matter if it's football matches or playing cards with my kids, I don't want to lose but the most important thing is that we came away with no injuries."

"I thought the game was played at a good tempo, we totally controlled the game in the first half and I thought we should've gone in at half-time two or three goals up. That may have been down to good saves from their goalkeeper or maybe we haven't worked enough on our shooting yet ,either way we'll work on that more as pre-season goes on."

"I'm happy with where we are fitness-wise, it's fantastic. In your first two or three pre-season games, you look at fitness. After that, you start looking at shape and how you want to play. I thought the whole game was set out in the style of how we want to play the game. We want to pass the ball and get it into midfield. I think the team in the first half did that better than the team in the second half. That might be because there was more experience in the starting team."

"The trip to La Manga helped. Scott Barrett and I had thoughts about things that we wanted to see happen out there and the players went well above that. They are a credit to the club and a credit to themselves. We now move on to Thursday's game at Faversham and hopefully we can create as many chances as we did against Stevenage and put a couple in the back of the net. That will give the strikers a little bit of confidence."

Several trialists were named in the Gills squad and Stimson hopes to see more from those players in the upcoming games: "I thought Alistair John looked quite lively when he came on. I took him to Stevenage from Charlton last pre-season. We had just got him fit and then unfortunately he got attacked outside his house. He was out for a long while, but Ali has got great pace and as a youngster, showed good potential at Charlton. He came in yesterday so I thought I'd give him a few minutes to see how he looked and he excited people and did well."

"Leo Roget hasn't played at this level for a couple of years and I think people could see that. Leo would be the first to admit that it was his first game at this level for a while and it does take time. He'll play on Thursday against Faversham and on Saturday at Grays and then he'll need a decision from me as he has got bills to pay and a life to get on with. The other trialists will also feature in those games. I want everyone to play 45 minutes in the first three games but when you have trialists on the bench, you need to get a look at them so that is why the two young boys on the wings came off."

Striker Mark McCammon missed the match and Stimson revealed why the Barbados international watched the game from the Medway Stand: "Mark McCammon has got a slight hamstring strain. When we signed him, I said to him that he wouldn't figure in the three games this week. He finished off in the League One Play-Off Final with Doncaster Rovers and then he went away with Barbados and played in World Cup Qualifiers until the middle of June. For him to play against Stevenage, it would've been far too early. The hamstring strain hasn't helped but he has been doing work with the physio. I am happy with the way things are progressing and I am sure that we'll get a glimpse of him next week against Ipswich or Birmingham."