Southend United began their pre-season campaign in style with a comfortable 4-0 triumph at Great Wakering Rovers tonight.
Blues boss Steve Tilson used the friendly to ease 22 players back into action.
And it was goals from Franck Moussa, Simon Francis, Lee Barnard and Francis Laurent which made sure it was a winning start for the visitors at Burroughs Park.
Blues' superior qualities were in evidence from the start and, after three minutes, the fit-again Alex Revell raced clean through on goal but his low shot was blocked by the legs of the advancing Rovers keeper Richard McKinney.
Five minutes later, Barnard also wasted a great chance to open the scoring as he headed Kevin Betsy's right wing cross over the bar from close range but Blues continued to enjoy more of the ball in the opening exchanges with Jean-Francois Christophe firing a well struck shot off target from 14 yards.
Moments later, skipper Adam Barrett headed over a right wing corner from Franck Moussa but, with 35 minutes on the clock, Barrett's centre back partner - trialist Andrei Stepanov - was forced to go off and was replaced at the heart of the defence by another trialist, Juan.
However, the enforced change did not disrupt Blues as within two minutes, they opened the scoring when Kevin Betsy crossed from the right hand side and Moussa netted with an acrobatic overhead kick into the bottom right hand corner of the net from 16 yards.
Three minutes later, Tilson's side doubled their lead as Francis curled a fine free-kick into the top left hand corner of the net from 20 yards after Moussa had been fouled by Danny Pitts.
Blues made nine changes at the break with Alan McCormack and Dougie Freedman, among others, entering the action but it was the only remaining member of the starting line-up, Barnard, who made it 3-0 in the 49th minute.
The striker calmy converted a penalty into the right hand side of the goal after a grounded Dan Wornham had handled a pass from Freedman inside the area and, in the 53rd minute, Francis Laurent rose at the near post to head home a right wing corner from Johnny Herd.
Southend made their final change in the 64th minute with kit-man Steve Parmenter replacing Barnard but the next excitement of the evening was a slight scuffle between the two teams which resulted in a booking for Anthony Grant.
Blues should have made it 5-0 late on but Freedman somehow sliced the ball wide of the left post from close range.
Southend: Mildenhall (Joyce 46), Francis (Sankofa 46), Stepanov (Juan 35), Barrett (Reynolds 46), De Vries (Herd 46), Betsy (Laurent 46), Christophe (Grant 46), O'Keefe (McCormack 46), Moussa (James-Lewis 46), Revell (Freedman 46), Barnard (Parmenter 64).
