Luke Joyce admits the League 2 season kick-off is “creeping up fast” for members of the new-look Carlisle United squad.

Six summer friendly fixtures have given Keith Curle a chance to run the rule over a group of players which includes eight new signings.

The competitive quest to stake a claim to a prized first- team place at Portsmouth, on August 6, continued yesterday as United visited League 1 outfit Bury.

No details of the behind-closed-doors encounter were officially released after the home side opted to shroud the match in secrecy.

But speaking ahead of that game, midfielder Joyce vowed to use that run-out – and this Saturday’s trip to Bradford City – to press his claim for a starting berth.

“Hopefully, I’ll get more minutes,” he said. “It’s about battling away and trying to earn a place in the starting 11 for the first game.

“It’s creeping up on us fast because it doesn’t seem that long ago we were coming back for the first day.

“It’s exciting times and we’re looking forward to getting on with it.”

Joyce reflected on last Saturday’s 1-0 defeat at National League Barrow.

“We knew it was going to be a tough test,” he said. “Barrow play in the Conference and there isn’t a massive difference between the levels. They’ve signed players who have a lot of league experience so they were never going to make it easy for us.

“We created a few chances but we couldn’t put them away on the day.

“The important thing is that we’ve stepped up the minutes on the pitch for people, with some getting 90 and others getting 60 or 70.

“The fitness is coming back for everyone and you can see the understandings we need are starting to form as well. Obviously we’d have liked to have won it but it just didn’t happen for us.”

The 29-year-old insisted it was games with a “real competitive edge” – like Barrow, who won after converting an early penalty – that would get Curle’s players ready for the new campaign.

battles

“Barrow play like a League Two team and we’ll face battles against big, physical sides like them going forward. We need to be able to deal with that,” he continued.

“Pre-season has seen us do a lot of hard miles on the training pitch already and now we’re moving on to look at the technical and tactical side of it.

“We’re trying to implement the style of play we want to use in games, which we did at Barrow, and that’s what we’ll concentrate on with the start of the season being only two weeks away.”

Joyce added: “Winning does mean a lot, and especially for me when I’m coming up against a good friend like Danny Livesey (Barrow’s ex-United man).

“He’s a great lad and it’s nice to see him looking so well. It would have been nice to get one over on him but it was their day and they nicked it with that penalty.”