Danny Cowley was pleased with a productive weekend of pre-season fixtures for Pompey.
He watched his side ease to a 3-0 victory over Havant & Waterlooville on Saturday, courtesy of goals from Ryan Tunnicliffe, Ronan Curtis and Liam Vincent.
A 1-0 loss at Gosport followed 24 hours later, although Cowley was satisfied with how the younger players fared after the break.
Ultimately, though, he is more concerned with seeing the squad build fitness ahead of the League One opener at the end of the month.
The Blues boss said: “We’ve had four halves of football over the past couple of days and I was pleased with three of them.
“It was a good professional performance on Saturday, but we were disappointed with the opening 45 minutes at Gosport.
“We lacked the energy and intensity that we like to play with, although we were pleased with the group after the break.
“The average age was very young, but they created a lot of promising chances that we were just unable to take.
"We’ve had four halves of football over the past couple of days and I was pleased with three of them."
“There were some positives for us to take over the two days and we knew that it would be demanding for the players – physically and mentally.
“But that’s what pre-season is all about – it’s supposed to be testing for them. They’ve got about 60km in their legs.
“We had a double session on Saturday morning before going to Havant & Waterlooville and so we understand why they looked a bit tired.
“We obviously still need to recruit and we know the areas we want to strengthen. The club are working hard to make that a reality.”
The squad will now be jetting off to Spain on Monday morning for a week-long training camp in Murcia.
Cowley said: “It’s been a tough fortnight and so it will be nice to have a change of scenery. It will probably be a little bit warmer.
“We’ll enjoy each other’s company and the sessions will be hard – there will be double or triple ones every day.
“We want to keep working on the players physically, as well as technically and tactically, and bringing them together because spirit is an important quality in a successful team.”