Doncaster Rovers look ready for League Two season ahead of time but Hull City in dire need of numbers

Friendlies are the only real window supporters have into how their team is shaping up for a new season.

McCann's Rovers looked ready for a League Two season still two-and-a-half weeks off – fit, sharp, in sync and having long since completed their summer signings.

Pressing was the first-half highlight, counter-attacking the second.

As for Hull, it was impossible to tell where their Championship players are, but painfully obvious there are not enough of them yet.

They have sold or released 14 players – including Billy Sharp, on Doncaster's bench – and sent back four loanees with only Ryan Giles and Cody Drameh, hours earlier, coming in. Oscar Estupinan has been recalled from a loan but only landed that day. Jason Lokilo will go too, it has just not been decided where yet.

With the first XI playing plenty of minutes on tour in the Turkish heat, the team which played the first hour had 59 league appearances for Hull, 58 of those between Brandon Fleming, Harry Vaughan and Xavier Simons.

"It was a game for the youngsters," said coach Tim Walter, "to see how far (progressed) they are and what they need for the future.

"It was maybe a man's team against a youth team."

When coaches talk of two players for every position, these are his second players. "Everybody saw we need more numbers," said Walter.

The nine substitutes who came on once Owen Bailey's second goal made it 4-0 were far more able to create chances against opponents who changed five themselves, but still incapable of scoring.

Walter’s style needs a lot of drilling – and good, fit players.

Twice in the opening minutes right-sided centre-back Andy Smith tapped the ball to goalkeeper Ivor Pandur and sprinted to the left wing.

"I don't think many League Two teams will play like that," smiled McCann, wishing out loud his old club picked a stronger team.

Hull had so much first-half possession yet barely got out of their half. Pandur touched the ball far more than anyone but his first pass into the opposition half, on 19 minutes, went straight to Rovers’ Jay McGrath.

"We've got the ball," the Hull fans chanted sarcastically, fed up after just 40 minutes.

Rovers waited for mistakes, Kyle Hurst catching Smith on the ball then dinking over Pandur. When Hull's Stan Ashbee picked out Hurst, he found Joe Ironside to score.

Hurst’s more central pre-season role suits him, as three goals show.

Doncaster have stability, selective, shrewd signings and the eye of the tiger after surging late to last season's play-off semi-finals but not beyond.

Four times they surged down the right, Hurst ballooning a pull-back, Ironside hitting the crossbar, and Bailey showing each how it is done.

Hull might well be up to numerical strength by August 31 but three Championship games will have been and gone and it is hard to imagine many players coming in ready to play Walterball.