Doncaster Rovers: Business as usual for Moore's men despite blank weekend

Rovers had been due to travel to Bury on Saturday until the troubled club were expelled from the EFL on Tuesday night.

Rather than handing his players time off, Moore has insisted the intensity levels and structure of the week be maintained as if Rovers had a game this weekend.

And the squad will play a training ground game on Saturday in a bid to replicate match conditions.

It is all designed to attempt for Rovers – unbeaten in League One so far this term – to maintain their positive momentum despite seeing their fixture calendar disrupted.

"We're very sympathetic to Bury as a football club and everyone connected to the football club,” Moore told the Free Press.

"And then you switch your attentions to yourself and you see it as a game less where we're looking for opportunity to build some momentum in terms of matches.

"We look at it as a missed opportunity to continue the momentum and the playing and the games.

"It's not an opportunity to rest up.

"We're well-rehearsed, well-geared and now we've not got a game.

"We have to keep the mentality of the players focused, clear focus on the game, on the training schedule and clear focus to keep the energy levels high.

"We've tried to replicate the situation. Nothing is ever like an actual game but we want to replicate a game, getting that end of the week hit in terms of preparation.

"It's a different one for us but one we just need to get on with.

"Initially it's very disappointing but we flip it around and we look at what Bury is going through at the moment, not just the fact they have been expelled from the league but they're trying to save the club from dropping out of football all together.

"We now have to turn our attention to Tuesday and a cup match with Lincoln that we have to prepare for.”

Barring typical work on the opposition team, training schedules have been kept as close to normal as possible this week, with a game planned on Saturday morning.

Moore decided against looking for external opposition in a bid to dictate exactly how the game will play out.

"It's all training ground based," Moore said.

"I did think about working with another club to bring a team in but I think when you do it yourself, you can keep the control.

"It's been a normal week. Nothing changed.

"The only thing that is missing at the end of it is the adrenaline that a game brings on a Saturday.

"I suppose it just opened the door for us to work on other things, with the dynamic of the team and things like that. We can overload on that and get some good work done."

Moore and his coaching staff will spread across the country on Saturday afternoon to watch as many games as possible for scouting purposes.

He said: “It'll be an opportunity for myself and the staff to get out to some games on Saturday.

"The whole of the first team staff, the whole fleet, will go out to games this weekend and continue to work. It's not really a Saturday off for us.

"If the team isn't playing, the next best thing is to go out and conduct reports and report back in on Monday."