Travis Cole is back in the first team picture at Lowestoft Town – but he won't be rushed back into full-time action.

Cole featured for the Trawlerboys last Saturday for the first time since sustaining a serious ankle injury in a friendly against Norwich United in July.

The central defender played the final 25 minutes as the Trawlerboys conceded late on to draw 1-1 at Royston Town and came through the game with no ill-effects. Assistant manager Andy Reynolds is delighted to have such a key player back in the fold, but the club have no intention of throwing him in at the deep end against league leaders Stourbridge at the Amber Dew Events Stadium today.

'There is no way we will be taking any risks with Travis – we need to deal with his situation in isolation and not let it be affected by what is going on on the pitch,' said Reynolds. 'It was a serious injury and we had pretty much accepted he would be out for the whole season. But he has worked really hard to get to the point where we were able to name him on the bench on Saturday. That shows his dedication to the club and he deserves a lot of credit for getting back a lot quicker than we expected, as does our physio Adam (Woodrow).

'He came through the game with no problems and was back in training this week but we will have to be very careful with him. It's a case of building him up and easing him back into it.'

Over the past few months Cole has been using the facilities of Waveney Gymnastics Club to aid his rehabilitation, an agreement his club hopes can be replicated in future.

Woodrow told the Town website: 'It's been great to have been able to use local facilities like Waveney Gymnastics Club to aid rehabilitation of our players. Hopefully we can create an ongoing arrangement to use the centre if we happen to experience similar injuries.'

Jack Wilkinson and Armani Schaar both picked up knocks at Royston and are likely to be missing for a couple of weeks.

Today's opponents will also be looking to get some late misery out of the systems as they attempt to get their bid for automatic promotion back on track. They were leading closest challengers Kettering 1-0 on Saturday in front of a crowd of more then 1,700, only for goals from Brett Solkhon (85) and Thomas Knowles 90+3) to turn it around.