By Claire Cameron

SEDGLEY Tigers coach Geoff Roberts is preparing for a busy summer as he looks to build a team capable of challenging for the top honours in National League Two North next season.

The Park Lane outfit, who fell to their 10th defeat of the season in their final league match at Caldy, finished the campaign in fourth place with 106 points, but Roberts believes next year’s squad will be even better.

“We need to do a bit of rebuilding so it’s a case of getting on the phone and meeting a few players,” he said.

“I think if we can get that right we really could be challenging at the top, more so than this year.”

With a number of senior players leaving the club including Jon Bishop and James Lloyd, and number seven Billy Emerson also undecided on his future, Roberts is keen to freshen up the team by bringing in some new faces.

He said: “We need to power it up slightly in the six and seven berths and we need a new second row as well.

“However, backs-wise I think we are in a pretty good position.

“We’re sad to lose Bishop and Lloyd but due to work commitments they have both decided to play at a lower level, where they don’t have to train as much.

“It will be more local for them and they won’t have to commit so much.”

Roberts offered no excuses after his side lost 34-15 at Caldy on Saturday.

He said: “We had a pretty decent side out but we just didn’t seem to tick in any way, certainly nothing like we have been playing.

“In fact, I don’t think we even got off the bus. I think the season finished before the game. It wasn’t really the end we were looking for but there are no excuses, it was a day where we didn’t perform.

“Caldy were definitely up for it.

“To them we are local rivals I suppose, and, of course, there are a few players at Caldy like the Kohler brothers who have also played for Sedgley so they wanted to play well, and they did.

“I suppose you could say it was a disappointing end to the season but I don’t think anyone has remotely dwelled on it.

“I think we wrote it off as an end-of-season type thing between two sides with not a lot to play for.”

Dominic Kohler opened the scoring for Caldy on eight minutes with Richard Vasey adding the conversion.

Vasey added a penalty on 16 minutes as the hosts moved into a 10-0 lead before James Lloyd pulled an unconverted try back for the Tigers.

Vasey added another penalty just before the break to give Caldy a 13-5 lead.

Tries from Derek Salisbury, Kohler and Gavin Roberts extended the hosts’ lead to 34-5 in the second half with Vasey again adding the extras.

Tigers reduced the arrears in the final 10 minutes with unconverted tries from James Flynn and Jamie Harrison, but it was too little too late for the visitors.