Comment: Why Doncaster Rovers and Danny Schofield are lucky for enforced break

Make no mistake, Rovers’ new head coach would much rather his team was still in the FA Cup even if it meant sacrificing what is a relatively relaxed schedule from now until May.

Doncaster tried to arrange a friendly for Saturday to fill the space left by their first-round exit to King’s Lynn. When that failed, an in-house 11v11 game was held instead.

There were no changes to the training schedule last week, with this week altered only to accommodate their match against Walsall on Friday evening.

No rest, then. Just plenty of time on the training ground.

A mini pre-season, you might say – and a blessing in disguise.

Notwithstanding the frustration of the performance and result against Colchester last time out and the desire of Rovers’ players and staff to try and put it right straight away, it highlighted the need for improvement within this team.

A regular Saturday-Tuesday schedule like Doncaster had in the frontloaded opening few months of the campaign would surely be less beneficial than precious time for Schofield to continue implementing his demanding approach at Cantley Park.

He has been forced to cram information to date but now has a rare opportunity to recalibrate mid-season.

Several key players should also be ready to return when Doncaster resume their League Two campaign.

Schofield admitted he has come around to the idea of this period being useful for the above reasons.

It’s the sort of good fortune his predecessors would have benefited from, but never got.