GLOUCESTERSHIRE get back into County Championship Second Division action on Friday having had quite a bit of time to think over their demise in the Royal London One-Day Cup.

The tournament they celebrated winning in that glorious late summer of 2015, with a Lord’s triumph over Surrey, is now a thing of the past for another season.

This year, as in 2016, Gloucestershire have not got within a sniff of a repeat appearance at the home of English cricket. Four defeats from their eight South Group games left them in seventh spot in the table.

And the downpour that washed out their final match with, ironically, Surrey last Wednesday just summed up the one dayers over the last month.

They could have actually won two of those matches which were decided by the Duckworth-Lewis Method if they had managed to get the top order working properly.

Against Glamorgan, chasing 278 to win, Gloucestershire went from a brisk 29-1 to 32-3. They recovered to 126-3 from 28 overs when the rain stopped play for good. Under the D-L Method, the Welsh county won by 11 runs.

Then, against arch rivals Somerset in a match Gloucestershire had to win to have any chance of qualifying to the knock-out stages, they let Somerset get too far ahead and needed 297 to win – at six an over – but again the early batting fell away as another D-L Method result saw the visitors to the Brightside Ground win by 81 runs.

So while Jack Taylor stood out as Gloucestershire’s player of the competition, having hit four half-centuries in those seven matches played, head coach Richard Dawson would do well to have his batsmen practising in the nets when they are not playing county matches in order to iron out what deficiencies in their one-day game there are before the T20 Blast competition gets going in July.

It is also a shame to hear that Australian ace Andrew Tye will not be in the Gloucestershire squad for the T20 Blasts. He is an extremely talented young cricketer and would have been a fantastic asset,

But a shoulder injury while playing in the Indian Premier League has ruled him out of playing for Gloucestershire as the time he will need to recover will take him past the schedule of T20 matches over here.

Additionally, it is sad news that David Payne is out of action for the county for a few months after a hernia operation. Payne took nine wickets in three matches during the opening County Championship games and Dawson hopes he will return for the away four day fixture against Sussex in August.

Meanwhile, Forest Green Rovers have already started to sort things out among the squad within days of capturing the longed-for Football League status with their National League play-off win over Tranmere Rovers at Wembley.

The squad will certainly need strengthening as manager Mark Cooper looks to ensure Forest Green not only survive but thrive in League Two.

So he has already signed Lee Collins from Mansfield Town. The former Port Vale and Northampton defender was signed on a free transfer last week.

On the non-league scene, it is  interesting to note that the Southern League have decided that only one team will be relegated from their South and West division, where Slimbridge and Yate Town play, and their Central league next season.

The changes see six Step Four divisions in the football pyramid currently run by the Northern Premier League, Isthmian League and Southern League, rising from 136 clubs playing in six divisions to 140 clubs playing in seven, twenty club leagues.

The decision follows a review of Steps Three and Four leagues to iron out geographical anomalies, cut down on travelling and encourage more clubs to climb the pyramid.

Of course, the Swans and Bluebells have high aspirations for the 2017/18 campaign and will not be thinking about relegation dogfights.

But at least knowing their chances of going down are already cut gives them some wriggle room to attract new players over pre-season.