Paul Warne watches Rotherham United win 5-1 with good lessons to learn

Having gone behind in the opening five minutes, the Millers took a while to find a fortuitous Freddie Ladapo equaliser, then kicked away from Gillingham. Dan Barlaser, who scored twice, missed a penalty and numerous other chances went to waste, with the visitors looking lost once down to 10 men.

It was not, though, a perfect performance in the manager's eyes.

"I said to the lads there's different ways to win games through the winter months with the wind blowing and the pitch wet and a bit chewed up," he said. "It wasn't as conducive for us but I didn't think we moved the ball wide quickly enough in the first half so I was desperate to get them in at half-time to reiterate that point.

"I'm biased but I thought we thoroughly deserved the win.

"I don't think Viktor (Johansson, Rotherham's goalkeeper) made a save all night and it could have been more.

"We weren't at our scintillating best first half and they're good lessons when you win.

"We conceded after five minutes and we're not going to have our way every game at New York. Teams are going to create something, take a chance, they took their goal really well and we have to learn from how that goal went in but I just thought we lost a bit of composure.

"Even myself on the side of the pitch, I thought, 'This isn't going to script.'

"Once we actually just played the game as we should, I thought we made it a comfortable evening.

"Mickel (Miller) scored, Dan got two (one a penalty) and could have had a hat-trick, Freddie scored and Smudge (Michael Smith) could have had a hat-trick so we are creating chances but some nights you just don't take them and after 20 minutes I had that awful sinking feeling is it that night tonight where we do everything but just don't score. Fortunately we got those goals."

Warne felt the way his side got back into the game after 39 minutes was lucky, but from there they turned on the style.

"I'd like them to turn it on from the first minute to the very last but I thought we should have taken the lead in the first minute with Smudge's chance with the header and a few decent crosses came in," he reflected. "I just didn't think we matched their intensity in the first 10 minutes and then we got a little bit frustrated.

"Our first goal looked very fortunate although Freddie tells me it was a great finish.

"I asked them just to relax a but at half-time and get the ball out from the middle of the pitch, we kept trying to go through them and that wasn't our gameplan at all. It definitely had an effect and Mickel definitely caused problems, as did Shane (Ferguson) and Cheo (Ogbene) was an absolute nuisance second half.

"I was really pleased to win a football match, I'll have a few hours not to think about the next one and then it all starts again."