HUDDERSFIELD GIANTS conditioning chief Greg Brown is confident the players’ off-season fitness training programme will stand them in good stead.
Pre-season training for Super League XVIII officially gets under way on Monday.
But members of the first-team squad checked in on Wednesday for three days of testing following their off-season break, and Brown admits he’s pleased with what he’s seen.
“The boys have had a decent break to freshen themselves up after last season,” said Brown.
“But they’ve all been conforming to an off-season programme that was put in place for them so they haven’t had complete rest. It’s more like something we call active recovery.
“As a result, the lads were raring to go and crack on with this week’s testing.
“They’s done strength testing, physio-based work land today will have their actual fitness testing.
“And it’s really important these tests are done.
“It gives us a baseline figure of exactly where the boys are in terms of fitness.
“You’d like to think they would get relatively decent scores and the actual results will dictate what kind of training the boys will do for the rest of the year.
“This is my favourite time of the year being strength and conditioning coach, because I get to have a massive influence on what the players are going to be doing for the rest of the year.
“I’m also looking forward to seeing how the Giants new signings who are here already – Stuart Fielden, Craig Kopczak, Ben Blackmore and Anthony Mullally – throw the weights around and it will show me what they are capable of and, more importantly, what they can bring to the team.
“We have a new coach in Paul Anderson and the players know the demand is going to be different this year.
“But they’ve been happy to come in and train the way he wants them to play, because he wants different things from this group of players this year.”
