We caught up with Manager Jim Bentley, following the first pre-season training session on Thursday.
“It was the first pre-season training session tonight, how have you found it?”
“It’s been good, good to have everyone back, everyone is in good spirits and good fitness. I’m pleased with how everyone’s looking, they have all invested in themselves since they have been off.
We told them what to expect, half-mile runs and they’ve done six of them tonight. The big thing about pre-season is that you don’t want any injuries, first and foremost. But it was good to be back and good to see the new lads integrating with those who were already here.”
“It was a slightly different setup to what we had seen in previous years on the first day back, what does the structure of this programme look like?”
“We have put all the days in we are going to train and the full games programme, there is no short cut to fitness. It’s a six week process of getting the balance right between getting minutes on the pitch, doing the fitness and covering all areas, such as the technical side. We planned it straight away, I work with a process of doing the half-mile runs on the first day, it is a good indicator as to where the players are at and what they have been doing. I have done that numerous times over the years and it has always worked well.”
“It was good to see all the new players in action tonight, how have they settled in so far?”
“Brilliant, straight away there’s a meeting room, everyone introducing each other. You can see them settling in, Sam Minihan, obviously an experienced player, you can see him in amongst the lads. We put him in charge of the cooldown to integrate him even more, and we will continue to do that with the other new players. It’s part of taking responsibility and puts them in that situation where they’ve got to speak, it’s good for them to take that on in certain stages of the sessions and throughout the pre-season programme.
They’ve all integrated well, all good lads, we knew that before they came to the club, we’ve done our homework and spoke to people who have played with every individual that we have signed. You can see we don’t want any people who are going to upset what we are trying to do with our culture and environment. They have all shown different strengths within the short period of time we have seen them tonight. We have got a little bit of everything, experience, lads coming in to fulfil potential and prove a point, the likes of Callum Spooner, who’s moving up a level. It was nice to see them all with their new teammates tonight.”