This week we have added to our numbers Maurice FitzGerald, the tight head prop from Biarritz, while Gavin Duffy has returned following a short break, having won his first international cap for Ireland against South Africa a few weeks ago.

It is not all hard work though, as some of the players will be with NEC later this week at the NEC Golf Day, and we are also looking to make players available for a similar event with CSF sometime in August.

Today the guys are playing tag rugby as part of their skills training with power weights sessions either side of this. The good thing is that at this time of year everyone wants to be outside and therefore the players do not need much encouragement to take part in various drills either individually or in groups.

The training ground itself has undergone a minor refurbishment, with a bit of painting and decorating having taken place as well as some new photos adorning the walls from last season. We are also in the process of adding a new weights room to our facilities to allow the player's to train in smaller groups under the tuition of Paul Pook and Dave Bell. We are also supervising maintenance to the training pitches with re-seeding and fertilizing going on to try and improve the standard of these pitches.

On the injury front, both Roy Winters and Ace Tiatia are progressing well from the operations that hey had before the end of last season and are expected to be fully fit in time for the pre-season games, which start on 11th August at Bedford. George Harder also had a minor operation on his knee at the end of the season and he should also be fully fit by the middle of August.

The players have another two weeks of the weights programme before we start the team rugby work on 26th July. Before then there is still much work to be done planning the programme for this training as we build towards the opening game of the Zurich Premiership season on 4th September, when we face London Irish at Twickenham in the London Double Header.