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Rovers, their 34 match unbeaten league record in tatters following Tuesday’s 4-0 thrashing at Hinckley Athletic, are apparently completely out of that high essential soccer commodity – luck – at the moment.

Key players meet more often in the Moat Ground treatment room than on the pitch these days and while Gresley are struggling to win games, their most significant opponents are making ground up the Banks’s League table.

Even new signing Colin Taylor, drafted in from Anstey Nomads to shore up the midfield department, looks like becoming a long-term casualty after tearing ankle ligaments during the uncompromising Hinckley clash.

But Moat manager Frank Northwood is still far from pressing the panic button.

And if he needs consolation he should look no further than Tuesday’s team list where the names of two young reserve players were successfully added to the list of blooded first teamers.

Teenage ‘keeper Lee Harrison stood in for injured Karl Austin and was desperately unlucky to have to retrieve the ball from the back of the net four times.

And when former Burton Albion defender Ian Pearsall appeared for the last 20 minutes in place of the crocked Taylor there was conformation that Northwood has adequate cover for the left back position.

Even the ending of Rovers’ unbeaten spree may prove beneficial. For Northwood could not deny that the run had put his players under certain pressures that only a defeat could relieve.

What his side needs now is for vital performers like Austin and striker Brian Beresford to make quick returns from injury to add support to the heart and soul conviction showed in recent games by the likes of Steve Dolby and Martin Devaney, both outstanding in the games at Hinckley and at Tamworth the previous Saturday.

For there is certainly enough conviction in the team at present to suggest that once Rovers’ temporarily rocking boat is stabilised, they can make a very real challenge for the Banks’s League championship over the coming months.