Steven Schumacher welcomed the return of club captain Eoin Toal and a first glimpse of summer signing Gaizka Larrazabal as Wanderers home in on the new season.
Toal made his first appearance since the second leg of last season’s play-off final win with an appearance as a late substitute against NAC Breda.
Gaizka Larrazabal also came on against the Dutch side to play his first minutes since joining the club as a Ruben Rodrigues goal was enough to give the Whites a 1-0 win.
Schumacher’s men now have a mid-week training-ground fixture for further fine-tuning before starting the season at Sheffield Wednesday in the Carabao Cup next Saturday.
“It was good for Lara to make his debut,” said the Whites’ boss. “He's only been training for a week, so for him to get 20 minutes is a good start and I’m made up Toally is back.
“He’s a big player for us. He was brilliant last season and we were disappointed to lose him like we did. He's worked really hard over the summer to get himself back into good condition, so I’m so pleased that he's managed to get 20 minutes in the last pre-season game in front of the fans.
“He'll continue his way back to full fitness this week with a behind-closed-doors game at the training ground and I'm pleased to have him back.”
Toal and Larrazabal helped see out a second successive clean sheet at the Toughsheet Community Stadium as Wanderers made it four games unbeaten in pre-season following a solitary loss at the end of the week’s training in Slovakia.
The Whites had plenty of chances to add to Rodrigues’ first-half strike as the midfielder added his fourth goal of the pre-season programme.
NAC made it tougher after the break but Wanderers kept them out in their final home dress rehearsal ahead of the Championship opener against Preston North End in a fortnight’s time.
“We said to the players before the game that this is going to be quite a different game with the style and the way Breda go about it,” Schumacher added. “It's quite unusual with how they build and how many players they get on your top line. You have to be ready to defend properly and try and get them on the counter-attack and transition moments.
“We had probably five big transition moments to kill the game off before half-time. We didn't manage to do that and we've had to work really hard in the second half to keep a clean sheet and to win the game, which is pleasing.
“In the first half we forced numerous turnovers and just weren't clinical enough with our chances that we got. That's something going into the Championship that we're going to have to be really good at if we're going to get points on the board.
“We're in a place where the team looks well-organised and they're buying into the information that we're giving. Now we just obviously need to add one or two more before we start to hopefully give us a little bit more of an attack and threat, so that'll be hopefully getting sorted in the next couple of weeks.”
Watch the full interview with the head coach on Wanderers TV