"We're in a pretty health place at the moment" - Town boss Millington happy with pre-season progress

Halifax kick-off their National League campaign in just over two weeks, and have the majority of their first-team squad in place.

And Millington says he is feeling positive about where his squad is up to in terms of preparation.

"Yeah, definitely. Physically, the boys have shown they're in a healthy place, the distances they're covering in training are very, very healthy," he said.

"Technically, the group is strong, we believe we've got a strong technical group with the additions that have come in this summer.

"Tactically, we've got a better understanding of who we are and what we are because of the retained lads from last season and most of the boys we've recruited, we started that process quite a long time ago in terms of watching them, assessing their qualities and seeing how they'd fit into our technical and tactical requirements.

"So all in all, we're in a pretty healthy place at the moment but there's still an awful lot of work to do to get us ready for Bromley."

Town have drawn 0-0 at Glossop, won 4-0 at Farsley and drawn 2-2 with a Sheffield United youth team in a behind-closed-doors game so far in pre-season.

"There's a lot of players who we know what we get out of," Millington said.

"Some of the returning players now who are stepping up, the likes of Rob Harker, it's been really encouraging to see his approach to pre-season, and then there's a number of others like Jamie Cooke, Angelo Cappello, who's come back looking like he's got a point to prove and putting himself in the frame for a position higher up the pitch.

"I could list a number of people in a similar vein who've come back looking ready, looking sharp and looking hungry.

"Then we've got the group of young lads who've come in as new signings who have all got a bit of a point to prove and are approaching it in that manner."

Looking ahead to the next week, with Town facing Fylde in another behind-closed-doors game on Saturday, Millington said: "We want to maintain that solid defensive shape, we want to work hard to try and maintain a good defensive record and make sure we're difficult to beat.

"We showed some patterns against Farsley that we've been working on in terms of how we unlock opposition defences, whether it's on the counter-attack or general play.

"So they're two features we'll look to build on.

"They're the areas we'd like to build on but we're mindful that we've got to maintain and improve some of the other aspects of our out-of-possession play."

Millington added: "We're moving in the right direction, for sure, and I think we'll continue to do that..

"It's a good week for us this week because it represents a step-up in opposition and then next week we've got a bit of time to regroup and analyse where we're up to, and work at building up into the two Ashton games and making sure we cover off any deficiencies."