Military manoeuvres for tough pre-season

I THINK pre-season is always tough – and as a player I think as you get older, they only get harder!

When you’re younger, you don’t appreciate how tough they are.

I’ve seen some players, including myself, come back overweight after the end-of-season break.

I remember Jamahl Lolesi coming back after enjoying himself a bit too much in the off-season, I think Olly Roberts last year was the same, but you only regret that when you come back.

I remember the year after, Jamahl came back in the best shape of his life – he learned his lesson.

Although you know things are going to be tough, you don’t know exactly how tough it’s going to be.

Waking up in the morning, pitch black, cold, the rain going sideways going into your face, you know you’re going onto the pitch to do some full contact, smashing each other.

You think ‘I really don’t want to do this.’ But you know you have to get out there to be the best that you can be.

In pre-season when you start, you’re unfit. You lose your fitness within two weeks of the season ending.

When you get back, you’re ripping in and you get fit for it. I think you are at your peak physical condition a couple of weeks before the season.

You slow down a little bit, simply because you can’t go into the season fatigued.

All the physical stuff is done in the first two months and in the final four weeks, you’re winding down and getting ready to start the season.

Physically you should be up for that challenge when the season does start, because you should have done all your contact work in the build-up to the campaign.

When I think about the toughest pre-seasons, it always involved hills!

Cannonball Hill in Wakefield is a rugby league player’s worst nightmare.

We once went to Catterick Barracks and were looked after by the Yorkshire Regiment. They were amazing with us. They worked us hard, throwing smoke bombs into our tent at 2am and making us crawl out of the base. They fired guns in the middle of the night, we had to crawl back in and make sure everyone was safe.

One of my best memories of that camp was Stuart Fielden, who kept himself warm by burning his sleeping bag.

It was a little bit of a contradiction. It was meant to bring us all together but we hated each other while we were there!

Ultimately, though, it did grow our group mentality and we had a really good season on the back of it.

It’s pivotal you are worked incredibly hard and you get to places you don’t want to be because in a game you find yourself in a similar position, when you’re hurting and you’re tired. From when I first started, I think the game has changed and that has meant pre-season has had to change with it. When I was younger, we didn’t run anywhere near as much in games. It’s become an endurance sport rather than a pace and power game, and that means you have to be able to run within an inch of your life. There’s also a lot more science involved, you have to do everything differently – you have ice baths and

One of my best memories was Stuart Fielden, who kept warm by burning his sleeping bag

recovery and everything that supports the game. It’s not something I particularly enjoy as much, I used to enjoy the rawness of that old-school era. It’s changed, but probably for the right reasons.

Despite all the work, nothing can replicate match fitness. No matter what you do, there is no replicating match fitness and playing in Super League, so you can only get as near as you can.

After the first game, you feel like you’ve been in a car crash. Actually, about 30 car crashes, depending on how many tackles you make!

When you get up two days later, you start to hurt and you know you’re back into the season.

It can’t be replicated, that’s why the work in pre-season is so hard because no matter what, if you’ve been in that first game – you know about it.