Fate of Doncaster Rovers U23s group confirmed

The situation regarding the club’s development group had been under review following the decision to release a raft of youngsters earlier this summer while Ben Blythe and Lirak Hasani were the only second year scholars to have earned a professional contract.

It has been decided the section will be disbanded, with no team entered into competition for the coming season while remaining players from the group will train full time with the senior squad.

CEO Baldwin said the decision had been taken on both financial grounds and with a strategic approach to ensuring more youngsters break into the senior side.

“We won’t be running an U23s this year,” he told the Free Press.

“Instead of having a whole team of U23s we will still target to have five U23s in the squad and they will train with the first team.

“So instead of spending x amount of money on 11 players we will spend the same amount on five players and therefore try to increase the quality of the U23s we’ve got to give them better chance of being in the first team.

“They will be integrated into the first team set up from the off.

“Some of that is a financial decision because it means they will not be travelling to games so we’ll save money on that and kit etc.

“But the money spent on the players themselves should be exactly the same.

“It’s fewer players but better quality.”

Scaling back the development group is not unprecedented for Rovers, having last done so following relegation to League Two in 2016.

However, a concerted effort had been made over the last 12 months to drastically improve the U23s section, with players handed individual plans for progression and spending more time working at Cantley Park.

The financial impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has forced a rethink of all club operations while the lack of significant progress from some of last season’s U23 group helped the decision to be reached.

Max Watters, Shane Blaney, Rieves Boocock, Myron Gibbons and Rian McLean were all released earlier this summer, with Cody Prior and Will Longbottom allowed to leave earlier this year.

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