Alan Irvine was happy with his side's first half performance against Stoke City at Deepdale on Saturday.
The Lilywhites looked comfortable against their Premiership opposition and could easily have been more than two goals up against Tony Pulis' team at the break. But Irvine was content with the victory and delighted that Neil Mellor has started to show more attacking intent.
"First half was really good," Irvine said after the 2-1 victory.
Everybody knows that once you start making a whole load of changes that it is not going to be the same but it is an essential part of pre-season, you want to get as many players as much time on the pitch as possible.
"I was delighted with the way we performed in the first half, we passed the ball really well, our movement was good and we had a good shape about us when we didn't have the ball. This week the emphasis has changed from fitness and technical work to more of the tactical team shape and I was really pleased with the way the lads went about that today.
"Goalscorers have that lovely knack of finding a bit of room in crowded penalty areas, Neil did that and finished the first one very well. For the second one I have been encouraging him to go and attack people and he did that and you see what he can do when he decides to be as aggressive as that on the ball."
There were just over 3,000 fans at Deepdale to witness the impressive win and those fans will have been happy to see Darren Carter and Richard Chaplow linking up so well in the centre of the park.
"I thought Chappy and Carts did very well in the middle of the park and I thought there were really good performances throughout the team. Things became a little bit ragged in the second half when all those substitutions have been made but that is just one of those things that happens.
"It was good to see Wayne Henderson play the second half. He was a bit too busy for my liking, but I think that was just people settling back in in the second half. I think our lads came out off it, they'd had a lot of praise in the dressing room at half-time and Stoke would have been fired up to come out and do better in the second half.
"We survived those first five or ten minutes thanks to Wayne making some good saves and we went on from there and even though Stoke got a late goal I felt as though we were quite comfortable for most of the game."
Irvine admitted that he had been desperate to test his team against a side that had done so well to stay in the Premiership next season and he now looks forward to a different test against Roberto Martinez's Wigan on Tuesday night.
He said: "I was desperate to get this game, I knew that this would be a good game in terms of our preparation but we can't get too carried away because we are a week ahead of Stoke in terms of our pre-season work and at this stage of the season that makes a big, big difference.
"We are not going to start saying that this is something absolutely wonderful, it was a really good workout for us and we will have benefited greatly from it. It still won't have any great baring on what happens on the 8th of August.
"I don't know how much time Roberto has had working with Wigan but everybody knows the way that he likes to play. It will be interesting to see whether they come as a 4-4-2 which is what the players have been used to or if Roberto has changed things for them to be a 4-3-3. It will be another big test for us and something which we are obviously looking forward to."
A further plus point for North End was that they got through the match unscathed and with the news that Youl Mawene is close to fitness things are shaping up nicely for the season opener in a fortnight's time.
"We had no problems which is fantastic. I am hoping that Youl Mawene will be back with us fairly soon as that will give us everybody fit. Youl is our only injury at this moment and with the size of the squad we can't afford to have too many injuries."
