The start of a brand new season is now just around the corner as Rugby Town manager Tony Dobson makes his final preparations for when the serious action kicks off on Saturday at Swindon.

By RUGBYTOWNFC.COM

	Dobbo will need to establish his starting XI quickly

Valley will travel to Swindon Supermarine in their first Zamaretto Premier League match this weekend after another pre-season of comings and goings.

Rugby will be hoping to build on five successive seasons in the Zamaretto League Premier Division although every year the finish has been consistenly between 15th and 17th place.

After a dreadful start to last season which included no wins from the opening nine league games, Dobson returned to the club to replace former manager Rod Brown and led the team to safety.

However, once again Dobson will have to re-shape his squad after a summer of player movement.

With the likes of Andy Stevens, Delroy Gordon and David Kolodynski committed with contracts for the season, Valley have also retained the services of the likes of Craig Herbert, Matt Gearing and David Staff.

Defender Liam Nicell has recently returned to Butlin Road after spending the pre-season with Brackley Town while Stephan Morley's protracted transfer to Halesowen has now finally gone ahead after leaving Valley for King's Lynn during the close season and then returning for a couple of weeks.

Tom Breward has followed Morley to Halesowen while other pre-season leavers include Neil King, Scott Musgrove and Jason Turner.

Rugby have moved to fill the gaps with the signings of midfielder Ben Twigger, full-back Harry Donaghy, winger Allando Davis, and forwards Josh Thompson and Jason Ramsay with all showing some promise over pre-season.

Dobson has ended his interest in striker Leon Kelly and will not be signing midfielders Paul Tocco and Daniel Grainger who featured against King's Lynn.

There could yet be more movement in the opening weeks of the season or even before the Swindon game on Saturday.

Rugby have still failed to win an opening day fixture since the 1-0 win over Gloucester City at Butlin Road in 2003 and to find an opening day away win, you have to go back nine years to the 3-1 win over Bromsgrove Rovers.