ROVERS are marrying a League One promotion push with bringing through a crop of talented youngsters as the club's Brockhall Academy continues to flourish.

Ten graduates have represented the first team this season while countless more have committed their futures to the club.

Those successes have more than justified Rovers’ commitment to Category One status, they are only the second third tier club to have a top ranked Academy, and the expense it requires.

The emergence of players such as Lewis Travis, the success of the Under-23s, who are top of their division, and the Under-18s, who are in the last eight of the FA Youth Cup, shows the progress and potential.

The signing of Okera Simmonds from Liverpool, following those of Dan Butterworth and Joe Rankin-Costello (both Manchester United) and Travis (Liverpool), proves that youngsters see Rovers as a genuine alternative to the north west giants.

Rovers' Head of Academy Stuart Jones was the man charged with continuing the work of Eric Kinder, who left Ewood in the summer, and while there have been challenges on the way, he hopes new ideas and initiatives will help keep the Academy thriving.

He said: “I say to a lot of people that ultimately we’re about developing young players. That’s what we’re about.

“It’s not just about the Under-23s and Under-18s in terms of the quality of young players we have there, if you look right through the system we have got a full-time training model that has some really good Under-14s and Under-13s, we have a couple of internationals in the system as well, an Under-15 who has been around the England team so I think right through the system we’ve got some really good talent.

“It’s really important that we continue to work to develop them and ultimately from a recruitment process we try and improve the quality of players we have here at the Academy.”

Rovers are not simply producing players, they are bringing through teams. Many of the table-topping Under-23s have been together for years, with the club now bearing the fruits.

“Because of the culture of the Academy and the Under-23s this group of players are pulling each other along, they are challenging each other every day in training and in games,” Jones explained.

“You tend to find they come together as a core group because of how they help develop each other in terms of how they compete and how they are with each other.

“That’s probably evident in a lot of the age groups and it’s great that they are pulling each along as well as the staff that play a part in that.”

New Ewood Chief Executive Steve Waggott has had regular meetings with Jones, and Under-23s boss Damien Johnson, since his arrival to ensure that any potential player gaps within the Academy ranks are plugged.

Jones added: “Ultimately that’s the Academy, you are trying to bring players in at nine years of age and it’s great if you can bring them right through.

“But along the way you’re always trying to improve the quality and the links.

“Butterworth and Rankin-Costello were taken from Manchester United at 16, there are players of quality that always pop up that we always want to compete for and bring to our Academy environment to further improve the players we have got here.

“The Category status is a big thing in that, ultimately someone looking at how the Under-23s are doing, how well the Under-18s are doing in the Youth Cup, they can see that we are signing good young players to professional contracts and there is a real pathway here.

“We feel as though we have a quality provision for young players to develop and that’s where we’re being competitive.”

In among the positives there have been Academy departures.

One of the club's brightest prospects, Callum Wright, departed for Leicester City on deadline day, three years after joining from Everton, despite Rovers' best efforts to tie him down to a professional deal.

Connor Mahoney also left the club last summer for Bournemouth, and is now on loan with Championship side Barnsley, with a tribunal set to determine the fee Rovers will receive for the 20-year-old.

This season alone, Butterworth, John Buckley and Jack Evans have signed extended deals, as have a number of the first team regulars in David Raya, Ryan Nyambe, Scott Wharton and Joe Nuttall.

So has there been a bigger emphasis placed on the importance of contracts?

Jones added: “It’s important for any club that you tie your assets up and look after them in terms of young players.

“The length of contract you give them is also important, it gives them a real opportunity to kick on and develop their careers and hopefully get into our first team.

“It’s a positive as a club that we are doing that and long may it continue.

“Hopefully, in the months and years to come, that will increase in terms of the number of young players that commit their futures to the club.”