Grant McCann warns Doncaster Rovers players there can be no repeat of poor fitness standards of last summer

Rovers lost their League Two play-off semi-final against Crewe Alexandra on penalties on Friday but the "what ifs" extended way beyond that night.

They gave their rivals a generous headstart by taking two points from their first seven league games – despite winning at Championship Hull City in the League Cup in August.

Had the league started on February 1, when manager McCann "reset" it, publishing tables from then onwards in the Cantley Park canteen, Doncaster would have won it by 10 points.

There were excuses for the slow start, with a new coaching staff installed in May and completely revamping the squad – James Maxwell, Tom Anderson, Luke Molyneux and Tommy Rowe were Friday’s only starters at the club last season – and a terrible run of injuries in the first half of the campaign.

But McCann is not naive enough to put them all down to bad luck.

"The players will have plans which were all set in stone anyway, so we'll give them to them on Tuesday," revealed McCann.

"They've got to stick to the plans.

"When I came in last summer it was disappointing when we came back for pre-season. Half the group wasn't fit, there were players training with lots of niggles, hence why we had 14, 15 injuries at the time.

"The players will be made very clear if they aren't fit in the summer they'll be surplus to requirements because there's no way we're putting our fans through what we saw in the first three or four months of the season.

"Players didn't manage themselves properly over the summer and came back using pre-season trying to get fit.

"We didn't have time to get plans to them, we didn't have things already set in stone.

Sign up to our Sports Editor’s TeamTalk newsletter

"That's not the way we work.

"We want to make sure when we come back on July 1 – in fact the players will probably be back two weeks prior to that for testing – that everyone's fit and if they're not fit they'll be in (early). They'll know that."

Danny Schofield was sacked as coach after the last game of 2022-23, on May 8, with McCann returning for a second spell as manager later that week.

In the dressing room after Friday's defeat – 2-0 on the night, 4-3 on penalties – McCann told his players his goal was to win next season's League Two and he invited anyone who did not feel up to the challenge to ask for a transfer.

But after the pain of a play-off defeat in a tie Doncaster were fully in control of after winning the away leg 2-0, and a glimpse at what is possible after such a strong end to the campaign and the enthusiasm it stirred in the home fans, McCann is not especially worried about the response he will get.

"They'll be motivated for sure because I think a lot of the ones I'm talking about aren't at the football club any more," he said. "This group is a really good group of boys and they work hard for each other and they're really close."