Thanks Daniel for your quick reply.
I realised where I made a mistake and now can see the clients so that part is all good. I just have to fiddle with the recovery, still persisting with the separate env for now.
I am going the track of copying a virtual domain controller in so that takes care of the domain accounts and domain etc.
Now to create the automated recovery.iso. I didn't have WAIK installed on the live environment so that will be happening at first chance now!
Will update on progress. Thanks