SOMERSET director of cricket Brian Rose admits that this has been the most difficult year he has experienced since taking over the role in 2005, writes Richard Walsh.

But despite all of the setbacks the club has still managed to get to the T20 Finals for the fourth successive year, even though they were left empty handed once again at the weekend.

“We have suffered another bitterly disappointing day, but we have got to the finals of the T20 for the fourth year in a row as well as the last two CB40 finals,” he said.

“As director of cricket I think that this is the most difficult year I have ever had in terms of keeping a squad together because of injuries and international call ups, and recruiting overseas players.

“The club will obviously want to do something because we are trophy less again and the public get frustrated and the players understand that, and you can imagine the affect that it has on them."

But Rose added: “Directors of cricket and clubs have to look in the long term and when I took over in 2005 we were very lucky to win a competition straight away and then we were promoted in 2007 and we have gone from strength to strength since then, so we are light years ahead of where we were and people tend to forget that.

“Where we are now compared to where we were then is that we are in space, so I think people have to temper their disappointment with that fact and yes we will definitely look at improving what we do in certain areas and we are working on that at the moment, and one of them is definitely recruitment.

“We will have a look at the international programme for next season but ideally I would like to have the best English qualified squad I can get and alleviate the problems of getting international Test players over for a long period, which is becoming practically impossible. For the T20 we will try to get the best available players in the world.”

Meanwhile Somerset are due to complete a championship match against Surrey on Friday and then travel to face Sussex at Hove in their penultimate four day game starting on Tuesday.