Pre-season training begins on Saturday with the fixtures due to be released on Sunday, November 17. When the players start to come back in, it suddenly starts to feel like a rugby club again.

I’ve seen a few comments recently worried about our recruitment and whether our squad will be big enough and strong enough.

Clearly, there are some other clubs in the division that have their own lofty ambitions and are splashing the cash. Newcastle and Doncaster are two that we know are recruiting heavily and targeting some quality players.

We can only control what we can control. We were faced with a six-figure deficit from central distributions and this simply has to be reflected in the quality of the team we recruit.

We have lost Alec Susino, Josh Johnson, Ben White, Deon Cross, Jake Spedding, Tom Walker, Glenn Riley, Willie Minoga and Lewis Charnock and, so far, we have only brought in Lee Jewitt, Connor Terrill and Carl Forster.

It is clear we have dropped in number and in quality, but those financial constraints are real. We can’t spend beyond our means and become a Bury or Bolton Wanderers. We have to show ambition and at the same time be sensible.

However, we truly believe that we have retained some of our very best players. We are expecting some of the younger players to push on.

Between them we expect Ryan Johnston and Jake Carter to fill the half-back void left by Lewis Charnock and Ben White. We expect Adam Ford, Shane Toal and Declan Hulme, who missed large chunks of last season, to cover the loss of Cross and Spedding and the signings we have made should compensate for the losses in the pack.

We will probably be making around four or five more signings before we get underway and then we have the dual registration players.

Myself, Andy Gaffney, Paul Crarey and Steve Rea had a meeting last week with the ten amateur players that we have targeted to join us for the pre-season.

Paul promised them that they will get chances in the pre-season games and I promised them that if their performances and attitude matches that of the players we have, then there could be contracts available.

The meeting was very positive, and I could sense the players were itching to prove their worth. I explained that becoming a professional player isn’t just about playing and training hard but there were responsibilities to engage with our sponsors and community work and they would also be in the limelight off the field.

There was some real quality in the room and I have little doubt all of them could step up to the mark if required.

With the signings we want to make, and these ten amateurs, we begin to look a lot healthier. We can call upon 34-35 players for pre-season and the bonus is that they all keep fit playing rugby with their amateur teams throughout the season.