The New Saints boss Scott Ruscoe is looking ahead to what he believes will be a vital week of their pre-season preparations in Portugal after ending their first week back with a win.

Saints hosted Ynys Mon in a friendly at Park Hall on Saturday after a week’s worth of work following a four-week break since completing the Welsh league and cup double on May 5.

Ruscoe feels his side have enjoyed their week’s work in Oswestry after many of his players – signed and trialists – enjoyed a minimum of 45 minutes against the Anglesey side, and is looking forward to how his charges fare in the coming sessions.

“Ultimately, it’s a successful first week back – it’s a good seven days done and now we’re moving onto Portugal in the second week,” he said.

“We’ll have four days and three nights there as we’re travelling on the last day.

“There’ll be a bit of training and a bit of bonding too, but there’ll be plenty of hard work, all about getting back to where we need to be for the third week of training.”

Ruscoe included up to five trialists in his side on Saturday, including two players from abroad, and he hopes the run-out against the Islanders was enough for the players.

“We gave two teams 45 minutes and we gave five trialists a game, and ensured that everyone got minutes who needed it,” he added.

“There were a few who still had knocks and were not quite right but it’s a good time to test other people that have come into the club after being recommended to us.

“It fills the gaps we need, short-term, as we need a another defender and we probably need a new midfielder.

“That takes us to 22 and that’s probably our squad limit – we’re in a good place with that to be honest, in terms of size and quality. The trialists have been in for a week or more and have done well. They’ve come from all over the place; we’ve had a Latvian boy and a young Portuguese lad come in too.

“We had a look at them in the week and then they had 45 minutes to an hour on Saturday. We’ll be going away and thinking about who we can have for another week, plus we’ve got another game on Saturday.

“We had a look at three other players on Saturday as well, and it’s just about forming an opinion on them, what they can do, what we can do and then see if it’s worth offering them a contract.”

On Saturday, they face PEEFA, run by former Tottenham man Pascal Chimbonda, at Park Hall – 2.15pm kick-off and free entry.