Richie Wellens hoping to taste victory after Doncaster Rovers' dinner date in town

Richie Wellens has had a full week on the training ground to prepare for this weekend’s clash with Morecambe – and has been pleased with the work done at Cantley Park.

With Rovers’ injury and illness problems finally starting to ease, Rovers’ boss also took the opportunity to get his players together in a social setting on Tuesday to foster team spirit.

Asked if he was starting to see his players play the way he would like them to play, Wellens told BBC Radio Sheffield: “It’s not just that, it's getting the squad to actually know each other.

“So we went out for a meal yesterday in Doncaster just to get the players all together.

“For the previous eight weeks it seems like two or three players have come in but they've not seen two or three players that have had Covid.

“Then they come back and somebody else is missing.

“It's just all been very, very bitty.

“So now that we've got everybody in we just want to get that team spirit going and that belief going forward.

"Once we get that first win I think the confidence in a lot of our younger players will grow rapidly.”

Fit-again Tom Anderson, Tiago Cukur and possibly Aidan Barlow will be added to the squad this weekend – and Wellens is upbeat about the options at his disposal.

“We’ve got more numbers now, in terms of having of our own players,” he said. “Obviously we’ve had numbers in the past but a lot of them have been trialists.

“Today we had 21 training and they’re all our players. That obviously defines what you can do in training, rather than having 14 or 15, so the training over the last few days has been really good.

“This is the best I’ve felt going into a game in terms of what bodies we’ve got and the numbers available.”