A squad of Rovers players endured testing conditions, personal challenges and stressful situations, but it wasn't in a match!

For a group of 16 Academy lads recently spent three days in the Brecon Beacons at the Call of the Wild team building centre the Welsh countryside.

Accompanied by Gary Bowyer - head of youth coaching, Tony Faulkner - Academy Head physiotherapist, Rick Leighton - Head of Education and Welfare, and Steven Ansty - video analyst, the youngsters, a mixture of first years and schoolboy recruits, spent three days where they were challenged mentally and physically to overcome personal barriers.

Call of the Wild, a private company that has set up a business of team building for large multi-national corporate clients, were assisted by the football club in producing a series of programmes designed to build the player's character and them to take responsibility, both as individuals and as a collective.

All smiles at the first briefing

"We are trying to create a culture within the Academy where the players take responsibility for their own development and their own performance," said Academy Head physiotherapist Tony Faulkner.

"And to do that you have got to create an environment where they are able to decision make, become responsible, and become very self aware, and there are times within the traditional where that doesn't happen.

"So the purpose of taking them down there, was to take the players out of their comfort zone, to stretch them and put them in situations where we were able to take a look at them from a different perspective in relation to becoming responsible and being able to decision make, especially when they were in pressurized or stressful situations.

"If you transfer that into a playing situation, it means when they cross that white line they have to make decisions, they have to be responsible for their actions on the pitch."

Supported by The 100 Club, as well as the Premier League, who contributed as the Call of the Wild experience also covered several aspects of the key skills as part of the player's NVQ as part of their educational studies, the activities for the Academy lads included a firewalk just hours after their arrival at camp, jumping off waterfalls, crawling through caves through freezing cold water, a mountain rescue exercise including map reading, and camping out in sub-zero temperatures - all non-football environments.

More often than not the players were ending their tasks and days freezing cold, tired, and hungry.

"The whole idea is to have a team of captains," added Gary Bowyer, the Academy's head of youth coaching. "Not just one captain, but players making decisions for themselves and not just looking to their captain.

"Sometimes you need to do it in an environment that they aren't used to, not just on the football pitch.

"It was a great experience for them, and once the lads were put into pressure situations you could see how they coped or didn't cope. It was a great learning experience and something that they have to take forward and not just leave as a one-off experience but to progress on it and then transfer it onto the football pitch.

"The players will have learnt a lot about each other, which was another purpose of the trip. But it was also fun as well, the majority of the players found the trip inspiring, motivating and really felt the benefit of it.

"There has been a lot in the media recently about the technique of English players and the decision making of English players and how, due to society, we used to play out on the street and make our own rules and as kids we made decisions ourselves.

"That has been taken away somewhat from society so what we are trying to create is when they come into the Academy is to facilitate that and recreate what has happened in the past and let them be decision makers and responsible for their own actions."

Unfortunately for the Academy they couldn't see if there was any short-term benefits from the exercise as their match against Bolton Wanderers the following weekend was postponed on Saturday morning due to a waterlogged pitch. But the most important aspect of the three-day trip is the long-term benefits and building on the experiences that they gained.

Our thanks once again go out to the 100 Club for their continued support of the Academy.