‘Let’s be careful out there’

The Warriors will begin contact training today and the team’s head of athletic performance Craig Twentyman is proceeding with caution.

The players haven’t made a tackle in anger since the round two game against the Raiders on March 21.

The Warriors were initially told they could train together when they went into lockdown in Tamworth, but this got moved back a week. They then thought they could begin contact training last Saturday, but this will now begin today.

Twentyman says he’s spent the past week getting the players ready for contact as the risk of injuries goes up.

‘‘As with anything, the same goes for soft tissue injury risks – when you haven’t done a lot of running, especially high speed running for a while, you’ve got to be smart about how you reintroduce all those components back into your training,’’ he said.

‘‘So we’ve done a fair amount of prep for a return to contact, without contacting as such.

‘‘But as we go along and we’re allowed to reintroduce it, there will be a staged approach to that.’’

Twentyman, who spent 12 years working for Rugby Australia before joining the Warriors, says a key element of their first week in isolation in Australia

Warriors head of athletic performance

was to get the players ready for the resumption of contact training.

‘‘We had been training in groups of no more than 10 and had conditioning games where we’ve used socks as tags, to avoid the contact side of things,’’ he said.‘‘There have been statements saying accidental contact has been allowed, but we didn’t want to blur any lines and kept a very strict no contact policy in place.’’

Twentyman said he was pleased with the physical condition the players were in when they turned up at Auckland Airport a week ago.

However, a few players needed extra work inside their Tamworth camp.

‘‘They came out of lockdown in surprisingly good shape,’’ Twentyman said.

‘‘I think it had to do with being in lockdown at home and not being able to access takeaways.

‘‘I’m not going to name names, but there were a handful of guys who weren’t where we wanted them from our testing and body comp side of things,’’ he added.

‘‘The beauty of the facility we’re in is that we’ve got them in a camp environment and can get that group up to speed through the use of extra conditioning options and extra sessions, and also tracking closely what they’re eating.’’

Twentyman said the three players who started the season overcoming injuries, Gerard Beale (knee), Agnatius Paasi and Jazz Tevaga (both ankle), should all be fit to play when the Warriors have their first game back later this month.

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‘‘As we go along and we’re allowed to reintroduce it [contact training], there will be a staged approach.’’

Craig Twentyman