United ’will be fittest in league’

ELISABETH CHAMPION INNISFAIL United premier men’s new strength and conditioning coach says the side will shock the competition this year, promising fans there’ll be no repeat of last season’s wooden spoon finish.

Rob McEwan has implemented a tough fitness training regimen, drawing on 35 years of experience as a martial arts expert.

“It is going to be a very competitive, very strong team this year,” he said. “I’m internationally recognised as a martial arts instructor and fitness co-ordinator and I’m incorporating martial arts into training, with flexibility, balance and conditioning work.

“We did a 40-minute sprint exercise on Monday and it’s only the fourth week of training – they will be the fittest team in the competition by far.

“We will shock the Far North Queensland soccer competition.”

He said he had trained under the world’s best, including Chuck Norris.

“I have been around a bit – I’ve represented Australia in taekwondo and had some special invitations to Korea for kuk sool won (a traditional Korean martial art),” he said.

McEwan said the hard work will be worth it.

“We’ll be very competitive,” he said. “John (Salogni) has big aspirations and I can guarantee that they will run 120 minutes and still have fuel in the tank. We will not be at the bottom, I can promise that.”