The Black and Whites have had a staggered pre-season this winter.
John Cartwright isn’t worried about Hull FC’s staggered pre-season, nor the time it has taken for his players to all get back to full training.
The Black and Whites began pre-season training on November 3 with a dozen players recovering from various surgeries, including the likes of Liam Knight, John Asiata, Jed Cartwright, Will Pryce, Cade Cust, and Aidan Sezer. That saw a young squad begin training while the injured players all return at different times, with some still to resume full training.
However, Cartwright is expecting a full compliment of players on the training field in the next two weeks, and is buoyed by the reps already in the locker from last season.
“It’s been business as usual,” Cartwright, speaking to Hull Live, said on pre-season. “We’ve got most of the squad together for the second year so we’ve got an advantage there.
“There’s not a big turnover of players so cohesion wise it’s not too much of a problem not having everyone available for another couple of weeks. In fact, training has stepped up. We’ve trained a bit harder than last year and there’s been plenty of buy in from the players.
“But the off-season is the easiest part of the year. They’re all training hard, but there’s no game at the end of the week and no players missing out on selection. It’s a great time to be a footballer. The real challenge comes when the games start.”
As for the club’s pre-season camp, which saw the squad train at a private school called Queen Ethelburga’s Collegiate, Hull got what they wanted, working on team cohesion, combinations and more at their North Yorkshire base.
“It was a chance to get away and spend some time together, more quality time together,” Cartwright said. “It was a chance to get some input from everyone on where we want to be, where we should be, and how we get there.
“The players have worked really hard and physically they are in better shape than they were last year. It’s been good.”
Post camp, Hull are back training at local community club Cottingham Tigers – a venue, alongside the Roy West Centre, which proved to be a hit last summer.
“We just needed to get back on grass,” Cartwright added. “We decided at the end of last year that we needed to get back on grass a bit quicker. It was a bit out of our control last year.
“They (Cottingham) have been fantastic to deal with and they have got a good surface down there. They have spent a lot of time, effort, and money on keeping the best surface they can possibly get.
“It’s at a standard that we want to have for the players to get them ready for the season ahead. I just want to get through to playing as healthy as we possibly can be and go week by week from there.“