DINO Radice will target promotion next season after admitting feeling ‘flat, disappointed and frustrated’ after Blackburn’s historic campaign fell away.

The Ramsgreave Drive club climbed to second place in North One West - the highest position in the club’s history - but five successive defeats saw them have to settle for seventh.

But Radice says his players will learn from the experience and will challenge again next season.

“We’ll regroup, recruit, enjoy our summer and go again,” said Radice. “We fell just short this season. We were up there in second place with just a few weeks to go but we fell away and ended up in seventh.

“It is a shame because the way we played probably didn’t feel like a seventh place finish.

“At the end, I was feeling a little flat, disappointed and frustrated but that is sport. That is rugby.”

Despite the disappointing end to the season, Radice believes his players can learn from highs and lows of the campaign.

“We weren’t really expected to be in the promotion mix this year so when you look back at the campaign it has been fantastic because we beat everyone apart from the champions, Vale of Lune,” he added.

“So we will try and improve the squad and make a concerted effort to push for promotion next season.”

The director of rugby insists his side’s end of season demise was down to having to play on Easter Saturday at Carlisle - an issue he raised with the RFU - which he says affected his team both physically and psychologically.

“It still rankles with me and I made that point to the RFU and they just told me to get on with it,” he said. “You have to remember, at this level, we are an amateur club and we don’t pay players.

“So when you have a supposedly free weekend during Easter, players will make arrangements to go on holiday with their family or accept that invitation to go away with their mates.”

While that was just one match - which Blackburn narrowly lost 22-19 - Radice said it hung over the team in the games leading up to the trip to Cumbria.

“If we had a full team, I have no doubt we would have picked up a bonus point victory and the play-offs would still have been in our own hands,” added Radice whose side beat Carlisle 42-7 in the home fixture in November.

“But there was a problem in the game leading up to Carlisle because those players who were not available felt guilty and you could sense that in our performance (Blackburn were beaten 23-7 at Waterloo).

“So it affected us physically in terms of that we could not field our strongest team but also psychologically as it was playing on the minds of those players in were not available.”

Radice knew it was always going to be a tough run-in as Blackburn had to play four of the top five in their last five games of the season - not helped by losing two key players.

“We had to play that Carlisle game, then lost Phil Baines to injury and Ockert Erasmus returned to playing cricket, so it was a domino affect,” said Radice. “So all of those situations transpired to work against us.”

But despite the disappointing end to the season, Radice is looking at the bigger picture of a club in good health.

“Our second team won promotion, the thirds just missed out, our under 16s won the Lancashire trophy and both our colts teams are county cup finals,” he said.

“So when you reflect on what the club has achieved as a whole, it has been a very successful season.”