Training with Charlie helping me reach peak fitness

THE training sessions that we have at the weekend are great. To have Kyran’s son Charlie there as someone Kyran has worked with since he picked up a ball for the very first time, as well as being in the Saracens academy, is something that has been of great value in getting up to speed month-bymonth.

It is also good to run drills with Charlie on video and then analyse bits in his game, and how he differs to me and viceversa. That allows us to plan for the next week’s training and keep the evolution going of fostering new habits.

It is all geared towards my skills but also the conditioning and mental elements. We break things up between what we can do at the weekend as a three of Kyran, Charlie and myself, while through the week I am doing exercises before work.

I am up in Scotland at the moment and was out at 6am today throwing a medicine ball against a wall for 20 minutes.

I have never before had coaching specific to being a scrum-half, all through the age groups and in my time at university it was just general training. So during my development I didn’t have a coach who had the knowledge of being a scrum-half and what the position entails.

Anyone who has seen the stuff I put up on Instagram or Strava will comment about the level of work completed to this point. The difference in myself between now and last summer is day and night.

Don’t get wrong – there is still a lot of room to grow and the fitness side is something I am working hard on. It is great being able to run fast but if your stamina isn’t up to scratch then you aren’t going to offer much persuasion to a club’s head of recruitment.

So getting up to the peak condition is significant.

Now that I have noticed that I have got better at certain things, it has definitely filled me with confidence to go out there and chase down opportunities.