DAVID Flitcroft agrees the team he has in place behind the scenes could rival the importance of his on-pitch charges as the demands of a League Two campaign begin to make their mark at the County Ground.

Town make the laborious trip to Grimsby this evening (7.45pm) with Flitcroft’s backroom unit having done all they can to ensure the matchday squad are in tip-top shape just three days after a two-hour journey to Yeovil.

Attention turned to the Blundell Park assignment as soon as Town boarded the coach leaving Somerset on Saturday night but the manager, who has made plain his displeasure at what he sees as the crazy scheduling of this fixture, revealed that planning for the Lincolnshire trek began some time ago.

With eight matches between now and the end of the year, limbs are likely to be tested to the limit on heavier pitches as Town seek to maintain momentum in what has been a good campaign to date.

Flitcroft admits he will be leaning heavily on the expertise of his medical and preparation team, led by head of performance Chris Neville, to keep the show on the road.

“(It’s) the strength of the staff and the planning and the preparation and making sure we get that done,’’ said the Town chief.

“There’s a lot of work to do. We’re in that period now where as we’re gaining points we (have to) make sure we don’t lose players and we’ll look at our strategy and try and make sure we did that right.

“We’ve got Chris Neville and we’ve been supported brilliantly by Chris. We’ll sit down as a group over this next week and really plan that out.

Flitcroft revealed chairman Lee Power, as well as other Football League clubs, had also played an important role in tonight’s preparations.

“We’ve been preparing it for quite a few weeks, the chairman has supported me,’’ he added. “We’re going to train at Rotherham on the way up.

“We’ve got a four-hour journey from Swindon, train at Rotherham to break it up.

“A massive thank you to the teams that have let us train this season - Wigan, Bolton, Leicester and Derby and now Rotherham - and it just gives the lads a bit of a change.

“The chairman has supported me fantastically with the hotels and where we are staying so we’ll get there Monday night, evening meal, pool session, recovery and then we’ve got a session in the morning, lunch, pre-match and then go.’’

Midfielder Timi Elsnik’s muscular problem, which forced him off at Huish Park was being assessed by parent club Derby as well as Town.

“It’s too close to call. It looked like a tight hamstring. We’ll get that assessed,’’ said Flitcroft.

“We’ve got a tough fixture coming up and there will be a lot of time on the coach travelling up there to Grimsby.

“It’s not as though Timi did it at the end of the game, that’s what’s the worrying thing.

Usually, if it’s a fatigue injury it would be 70 minutes-plus but this was before that.’’ Flitcroft was hopeful on forward Paul Mullin, who was pulled out of the weekend game after overstretching his groin in the warm-up.

Chris Hussey’s progress will be assessed more fully once tonight’s game is out of the way with Amine Linganzi also suffering from a hamstring problem.