Yep - they've made a thing about their average squad age today being only 23, but ours is 22; it's their strongest available squad vs our weakest (no offence) with 10 of our 11 most important players missing. For a team with stated intentions of bouncing back to the top flight without needing the MPG they'll be looking for a score similar to last season's friendly, just the other way round (60-20 IIRC). Good luck to the youngsters, big learning experience for them.

What a hypocrite. Remember that time you went on a Salford topic about their 6 potential signings to simply goad them about a result and state pity for them? Mind you, two days before your (as it turned out) historic visit to Wembley, you probably had a bit of SL swagger about you. All gone now obviously. Shame that.

Have the details for Rovers civic reception been announced yet?

For me it was just a "practice match" (never a friendly) and if we really wanted to win it we could have by putting a stronger team out. We know that and I think most Rovers fans know that. The team we had out you could see really tried but it was only ever going one way and if by some strange happening we had won, there would have been some strong comments from Rovers fans flying about. We will gauge our team against Salford and them against a full SL team in the middle 8's. It's a long season.

It was just that "practice". I think that it showed that your youth team as a whole is not up to a middle 8s standard team. I don't think anyone would expect them all to be at that level in their development and if they were they would likely be on loan at lower end SL, upper end Championship teams already.

We played what was in front of us, that's all we could do. The comments about over celebration and civic receptions are a bit boring, as they are trotted about by either side in these instances.

In the end we had a contested training session, in which both teams seem to have come through with a bit more match fitness and hopefully unscathed by injury.