GLEN Chapple says Lancashire must find a way of dealing with England call-ups if they are to enjoy success in County Championship cricket.

Coach Chapple oversaw Lancashire’s third four-day relegation in seven seasons since they won the Division One title back in 2011, going down by virtue of fewer wins than Nottinghamshire - three to four.

The point docked for a slow over-rate in the home defeat against Yorkshire in late July hurt them badly.

Chapple also feels a host of Lions and other representative call-ups for series such as the North v South one-day series in March proved an issue.

While captain Liam Livingstone and leg-spinner Matthew Parkinson missed two Championship matches midway through the season due to a Lions one-day series, the Red Rose had the latter stages of their pre-season badly disrupted.

Livingstone missed their tour to Dubai in mid to late March while on Test duty in New Zealand, as did Darwen's Alex Davies, Keaton Jennings, Saqib Mahmood and Parkinson, who were all playing for the North in Barbados at the same time.

“Moving forward we have to work out how to combat selections,” said Chapple.

“We’ve got players who we’re proud of that play representative cricket, who we want to play representative cricket for England. But we have to maintain our strength whilst that happens.

“At times this year, we’ve failed in that regard. But it’s certainly not through lack of effort.

“With the squad that we’ve got, I think the players and the coaches would accept that we’ve underperformed in four-day cricket. We’ll regroup.

“There’s a lot of good things happened along the way, a lot of good cricket played.

“Everybody who’s interested in cricket should know that Division One is tough.

“We’ve gone down on equal points with Notts, so it’s been close. But we would think that in a reasonable season, we would finish mid-table and would expect to be good enough to challenge for the Championship.

“Over the course of a career, you’re bound to have seasons where you struggle, and I think it’s really important we learn from that - individuals learn from it and the coaching team learns from it.

“We have to look forward. It’s all about how we progress from here.

“We have a good chance to come back strongly in four-day cricket and build on what we’ve achieved in one-day cricket.”