Gillingham face another stern away test this weekend as they put their unbeaten League record on the line in Yorkshire when they travel to face Doncaster Rovers with boss Mark Bonner determined to keep winning.

“I think Saturday will be a good game,” boss Mark Bonner admitted to KSN this week at the press briefing, “They have started the season well, as well and I think in their calendar year – off the top of my head – is pretty impressive!”

“They finished last season unbelievably well with the winning runs that they had, and that momentum has followed them into this season.”

“They have made some changes to the team and got some different players in and had a bit of a change, but probably, the momentum that they have gotten and the way in which they work is pretty consistent, and a lot of the remaining players know that.”

“Grant (McCann the Doncaster boss) has a really good way with his players and the way in which they have developed their style is really clear to see. They have started the season excellently…” 

“I think that the openness of this League is so apparent as every week I seem to be saying to you “you can see why they are one of the fancied teams” and I seem to be saying that quite often, which I think by definition just tells you what this League is about – there are loads of good teams and it will be open for a lot of teams to fight for those places.”

“But, they will be in the same bracket as us – fancied, good starters and want to have a successful season. I think back to the end of last season and remember Grant after the Play Off defeat basically saying that if his players did not want to come back and win the League, then do not bother!”

“I think that Doncaster’s intent for the season is really clear – they have started as they would have liked to, and we know that away from home we have already had some tough ones and that this will be the toughest test for us so far, I think!”  

“We will put a team together for the weekend – we have had everyone on the grass Thursday walking through some bits and we’ve done a lot of work in the video room as we don’t have a lot of time between games and cannot work so hard at the moment, so we are trying to do our work on the tactics board and video and bits and pieces like that.”

“It has been good, but we will find a solution and put a team out to try and keep the momentum. I think we have that – we had it in the League games and even though we went into Tuesday’s Cup game with a different team, we still looked like a team in a good place – I don’t think that the result changes that at all, as the performance maintains that idea that we are a developing team doing well. Lots of options, lots of ideas and lots of potential!” 

Bonner then went into the team news for the weekend in a bit of depth.

Skipper Max Ehmer serves his one game ban for his red card against Chesterfield whilst Euan Williams is on Northern Ireland under 21 duty with matches against England and Ukraine, whilst on the injury front, Aaron Rowe’s hamstring injury will keep him on the sidelines whilst Tim Dieng’s knee is causing concerns with the Gills manager not expecting the Frenchman to be involved for around a month.

There was better news of Conor Masterson’s Achilles injury – the Irishman is back running now, and the manager hopes he may have his central defender back in training next week.

The players who played in the Peterborough Bristol Street Motors defeat on Tuesday all came through with precious minutes in their legs although Bonner wouldn’t be drawn on whether Josh Andrews, Ethan Coleman, Bradley Dack or Elliott Nevitt would feature in Yorkshire this weekend.