Rotherham United: So much more to come from Millers' debut boy

The Irishman made his long-awaited first appearance in a red and white shirt after he suffered a knee injury in a behind-closed-doors game played before his signing was even announced by the club.

It has been the best part of two months in the treatment room for the left-back but he made up for lost time in the Leasing.Com Trophy against Doncaster on Tuesday.

Coming on as a second-half substitute, Clark provided an assist, won a penalty and scored the winning goal in a 3-2 success at the AESSEAL New York Stadium.

Warne said of his player's debut: “It wasn't bad was it? The first five minutes was a bit of a whirlwind for him.

“We signed him as a left-back who can bomb on and he is another option to play out wide possibly.

“He is definitely game. The lads love him in the dressing room.

“He is a really infectious kid, unfortunately the first game he played when he arrived he did his knee and he's been out for a period of time.

“He's only been training with the squad for three or four days, so to have that amount of impact it was some 45 minutes.”

Clarke helped settle an entertaining game between the two South Yorkshire rivals in a competition that is notoriously difficult to get enthusiastic about.

But Warne used it to get game-time into some players who had been out of side and also handed a debut to Julien Lamy.

“I thought we started really well. We got the ball wide and got crosses into the box and forced an early goal,” Warne said.

“You could see the character of the lads and they came back and there wa pressure on them to do that, but on chances alone we definitely deserved it.

“On the whole, we're pretty pleased. We've taken a couple of injuries regrettably and the subs weren't the ones I wanted to make, when I wanted to make them but you just have to roll with it.

“To win a game is always good, we've backed it up from Saturday and now we have to regroup ahead of this Saturday.”