Stenhousemuir: Swift believes pre-season opener helped get the 'rustiness' out of his squad

The Warriors travelled to Scottish Lowland Football League side Berwick Rangers on Saturday, drawing with the hosts 1-1.

After a poor first half, Lewis Baker gave the Borders outfit the lead before the Warriors’ top hitman last term, Tam Orr, levelled the match eight minutes later.

“It wasn’t the most fluid game,” Swift said of the match.

“You could see that the boys had not been playing for 6/7/8 weeks, some of them longer than that with injuries.

“It will get the rustiness out of the system and it helped them get used to the formation they we’ve asked them to play.

“On Thursday night at training, we gave them a lot of information and it was a lot for them to grasp at the one time, we maybe overdone that but it is a process.

“We’ve got more pre-season friendlies and the league cup which we use as well so we just move forward.

“It wasn’t the best game we have played.”

The second half performance was an improvement from the first, with the boss happy with the performances shown from a number of players.

He added: “You are expecting to try and incorporate the stuff we are trying to do and I thought the boys did that. They didn’t try and force things.

“Tam Orr lives for goals and it was a good striker's goal. I thought Scott Walker who played the cross in did really well in that half especially cutting onto his left foot.

“In the middle Ross Forbes set the tempo and it was a good performance from him. Michael Anderson came on and did well so we can a lot from him.”

The Warriors have lined-up a tough schedule with Dunfermline Athletic and Darvel opponents before they kick off their Premier Sports Cup group.

“We have tough games coming up. Dunfermline will be not far away from where they want to be. Darvel the Saturday after that are top team from the West of Scotland leagues and they have a decent squad. The idea was to test ourselves.”