Salford players set to feel the chill – by running up an indoor ski slope!
SALFORD’S players have been warned to expect being left out in the cold – despite reaching Super League’s Grand Final.
For they will be doing a training session in an indoor ski slope - and lifting a mind-boggling 37-and-a-half stone in weight is the norm!
The Red Devils are back after their amazing run to the Old Trafford showpiece, which they lost to St Helens.
Strength and conditioning boss Greg Brown is the man in charge of making sure they are fit and able to resist injury in one of the toughest sports of them all.
And he revealed to SunSport a spell in the snow is on the cards – and not just for chucking snow balls.
He said: “We’ll probably head to Beyond, which is near our ground and do a session there.
“It’s real snow, so we’ll probably have the lads sprinting up and down the slope.
“We often try different things as pre-season is a grind – after the running they can throw the snowballs around!
“But in pre-season, there are relentless running sessions outdoors in the cold and ones with a crazy amount of lifting in the gym.”
As well as whipping Salford into shape, Brown runs a gym in Huddersfield but several of Ian Watson’s men have been training there when many sides were on the beach.
New signing Pauli Pauli – all 6ft 4ins and 19 stone of him – has been doing sessions while loanee Sebastine Ikahihifo has also been putting himself through it.
Brown added: “Pauli and Seb are lifting regularly 220kg or 240kg in the gym. Strength isn’t the be all and end all but they have to be strong.
“In the modern way of training, we try to build players to be as big, strong and robust as possible, The seasons are relentless, put them through that without training and they’ll get injured frequently.
“At the gym I run, people are very interested in what I do outside of there and some of the players have been training there relatively frequently, certainly in the off season so members have trained with the players.
“I’ve had Pauli there for a few weeks but I had to prepare him for the way we train.”
Salford kick off their season with a Grand Final repeat against St Helens on Friday, January 31 but with a much changed team.
Steve Prescott Man of Steel Jackson Hastings has gone, as has fellow Great Britain international Josh Jones, along with a number of others.
However, 12 new boys have come in and Brown tipped one of them – Connor Jones – to keep up with the very best of them.
For even though he has only ever been part-time, the signing from Featherstone is as fit and fast as any full-time star.
Brown said: “Connor is a real surprise, with his history of being in the Championship and never having played in the NRL.
“He’s from a part-time background but from his test results in terms of his aerobic capacity, you’d think he was a full-time player for sure.
“Connor’s made for this environment but we try and recruit players that are that way. That’s what we’re all about, we’re after players that are 100 per cent competitive.”
