Swindon Town boss David Flitcroft happy with the performances of trialists in friendly win

David Flitcroft has said he was happy with the performances of his five trialists on show in the win over Swindon Supermarine, but stressed the test was not big enough to properly evaluate them.

Swindon Town got their pre-season campaign underway with a convincing 7-1 thrashing of local semi-professional side Swindon Supermarine, and had five players on trial at the club on show.

One of them, Zavon Hines, was confirmed by Flitcroft to be in with a shot of earning a contract at Swindon during the week while another three - Donal McDermott, Jordan Slew and Cece Pepe, were also given minutes.

A fifth player, a right-back, has not been officially confirmed as Jack Bainbridge, but Bainbridge is indeed a right-back and the player in question was repeatedly referred to as 'Jack' during the match, while his Twitter profile photo resembles the person who played for Swindon on Saturday.

Hines is a former West Ham youth product who was most recently released by Southend, McDermott has recently left Rochdale despite being offered a new deal, Slew left Plymouth this summer while Pepe is a 20-year-old French centre back who has spent time at PSG and Marseille.

Bainbridge is 19 years old and currently without a club after being let go by Everton.

Bainbridge, McDermott, and Slew played the entire first half, Hines played the entire second half while Pepe was brought on at half-time but only played 30 minutes, before being replaced by Jordan Young.

Slew opened the scoring in the 7-1 win before strikes from Conor Thomas, Johnny Goddard, Luke Norris as well as three from new striker Paul Mullin.

Speaking at the full-time whistle, Flitcroft said:

"It's not a game to judge the trialists on, what I'm judging them on is what they've done in the week, what the power output is, what the physical demands are, and how they are growing into the group.

"This wasn't a big enough tests to start judging what the trialists can do in a game situation but the application levels is something I was certainly looking at and the application levels were certainly there.

"I'm happy with a lot of the performances today.

"Jordan's here, we're having a look at him, and the lads are in front of him in the pre-season work, we're just seeing if he catches up. 

"Donal has had quite a few clubs contact him, he's interested in them, he knows me up from the north, he knows what environment I like to set so it gives (us) a chance to get Donal in and have a look at him."

Flitcroft then added that there is no set deadline for these players to impress him sufficiently for them to earn a deal at Swindon.

"Like I said, this isn't a big enough test for me to make a decision on them. You're always running against time but we've got an opportunity to look at them and they've got an opportunity to look at us and that's important so we'll see where that goes."

Pepe being hauled off after just 30 minutes might have suggested that he will not be at the club come Tuesday when Town travel to Melksham, but this is not a decision Flitcroft has made yet.

"I'll speak to him, and I think it's very respectful that I do that, I don't want him to find out from the press what's going on with him, that's not the way I operate."