A Note From Lynn Howells

Director of Rugby Lynn Howells sent us this note from an Army Camp, where he has the lads holed up at the base of the 3rd Yorkshire Mechanised Infantry to asses pre season so far.

We are now a week into phase two of our pre-season training and I have been impressed by the way in which all the players old and new have bought into the new training at the club.

Phase one started back on the first of June (which seems a long time ago now) and took seven weeks, during this time the players were put through intense physical conditioning by Scott Pearson. They worked for four weeks then one week recovery then another two weeks where the intensity was increased. During this time the conditioning was conducted in the Gym, hill runs and work with various equipment more related to rugby conditioning.

As I stated earlier we are now into phase two of our pre-season where we concentrate more on our rugby without forgetting our conditioning. The first week was conducted at Castle Park, and this week we are on camp where Brett and myself will be able to assess what we need to work on during the remainder of phase two. Also during this period we will for the first time have a full squad with the return of Hudson and Toma from international duties and Chris Briers now becoming full time. We also have our pre-season games against Pontypridd, Worcester and Glasgow which will take us to phase three, the build up to our first Championship game.

The squad has become close-knit with a lot of banter and encouragement during the tough times and the players are a pleasure to work with. All the coaching staff and physios are now concentrating on making sure that we are as physically and mentally prepared as we can possibly be for the start of the new Championship season