The hard work at Craven Park begins in earnest next week
Nathan Cayless will get pre-season underway at Hull KR next week(Image: SW Pix)
Nathan Cayless is in the country and he’ll get his Hull KR squad on the training pitch for the very first time next week.
Cayless arrived at Manchester Airport on Wednesday morning and he’ll waste no time getting to work at Craven Park with the former New Zealand international meeting the press later this week.
However, the Rovers squad won’t get to meet Cayless in person until next week when they return for day one of pre-season on Thursday, November 12.
Of course, Cayless already has a strong understanding of the squad he is inheriting from Willie Peters. In the months that have passed since his appointment, Cayless has watched every KR game, while he has also been able to watch an extensive amount of first-team and academy training footage.
As such, he’ll feel fairly confident meeting with players on an individual basis in the opening weeks of pre-season, with a strong knowledge of everyone’s strengths and weaknesses.
He’ll be keen to see them in action on the grass too, though, as he further assesses the tools he currently has at his disposal.
A majority of his first-team squad will return next week and Cayless will hope to make swift progress with them.
However, at least four players are expected to return to action a little later. Mikey Lewis and Jez Litten have been away with England over the autumn at the World Cup, where they featured fairly prominently for Brian McDermott.
Litten played in all three games for England, starting the final game against Papua New Guinea and coming off the bench against France and Tonga. Lewis came off the bench in England’s final two games and he managed to score three tries in the competition.
Unfortunately, they were unable to secure England’s progression through to the semi-finals, but because of their involvement they won’t be expected to return until December at the earliest.
Arthur Mourgue and Jordan Dezaria are very much in the same boat. The pair were in action for France down under. Dezaria featured in two games, while Mourgue played in all three, kicking three goals and one drop goal.
Given the majority of his first-choice spine was at the World Cup, Cayless will have to wait to build on KR’s attacking link ups, but the hard work elsewhere certainly starts in earnest next week.