The first day of pre-season training is always the hardest and on Monday night the hotel was a ghost town after 10pm. Come Tuesday morning there were some very tired legs dragged down to breakfast at 7am. (On a personal note, I usually eat breakfast at 10am so my body is readjusting… but slowly!)
The Tuesday morning session was painful to watch, let alone take part in, and the seemingly endless sprint and running routines appeared to border on cruelty! The new players have all settled in well and the team spirit within the group is very impressive as demonstrated by all the players backslapping and handshaking one another after each routine ends and they all feed off one another and constantly encourage each other. This all bodes well for the future.
A few of the players have head colds and one a chest infection so the vice chairman has spent most of his time with pharmacists and doctors when he is not at the supermarket buying tea bags and massage oils.
After the two-hour morning session the players went straight into a one-hour gym session (see photos).
The afternoon session started at 5pm and was as intense as the morning session and how the players dragged themselves through was amazing.
Sandwiched in between the various sessions was a one-set tennis challenge match between the vice chairman and Stacy Long. Long sneaked it by a tie-break, 7-6, but due to the 32-year age difference it was somehow declared as a 6-4 win to Peter Varney and the dispute carried on long into the evening.
