Doncaster Rovers: Darren Moore's plan to get development squad turning out first teamers

But he has warned the young players at the club to expect a tough time as he looks to prepare them for the rigours and demands of first team football.

Moore gathered his senior coaching staff together to devise a new programme of work for Rovers' development group, which includes the likes of Shane Blaney, Max Watters, Rieves Boocock and Cody Prior.

And the Rovers boss says the onus is on the players to embrace the hard work they will be put through.

"With the development squad I want to up their contact time on the ball," Moore told the Free Press.

"We all have hard working groups but they are the most hard working, intense group because they are the next group away from the first team.

"That step up for development players to working around seasoned pros and being on the front line of the game can be a massive one.

"But it's available to them so they have to be at a level and a standard, showing that consistency week in, week out to do it.

"So it's physically, mentally, they're under a fair bit of strain during the week because they have to be able to cope and manage the environments they are going to be put in.

"They're expected to contribute to the team.

"They really are out of that comfort zone and there are really high demands on them that they're working and performing at a level that would get them in and around the first team.

"If they are doing that then it will get them there.

"It's not a development squad where they can come in and go mediocre. It can't work like that.

"That is why me and the staff have come together to devise a programme. It's quite an intense programme - lots of contact time on the ball and it'll demand from them week in, week out.

"They will have a programme that they have to adhere to and go by.

"I believe in that and that is why they will get it because I think they have to up their contact time.

"When they come in the morning, it'll demand time from them throughout the whole day, week after week.

"If they apply themselves to that programme, they will definitely improve as players and people too."

Moore says it is very much a case of 'the hard work starts here' for youngsters as they sign their first professional deals and should players have any other mindset they will easily find themselves lost within the system.

"You can get lost at that age because you've come out of the U18s at a young part of your career but you can start telling yourself things like you should be in playing when in fact, you're nowhere near," Moore said.

"It's not to say you won't get up there. You've just got to apply yourselves right with it and the programme that is there.