A week after returning to pre-season training, manager Mark Robins indicated the first stages of preparations for the 2015/16 have gone well.
The players returned for testing at the start of last week before officially returning on Wednesday, July 1. A week later, the Iron are approaching their first game – an away trip to Gainsborough Trinity on Saturday.“Everybody seems to be settling in pretty well,” he told The Iron Player HD.
“Demanding things from each other is an important part of it and they’ll start to do that now. We’ve asked them to do various things in training and it then starts to become more concentrated and more focused and that’s what we are asking them to do from minute one really.
“It’s been tough for them. Last week, we had long days, with hard work in soaring temperatures. It’s always tough, but it makes it more difficult. For some of the players, Tuesday was their first day’s training this week as we had the Golf Day on Monday.
“Those who didn’t play golf trained though. The humidity has been fairly high over the week and the work they have done has made it tough. We’ve clocked quite a lot of miles and when you look back on what we’ve done, they’ve done a lot of good work.”
A good pre-season is pivotal to the ambitions of the forthcoming season, with fitness levels and stamina built up ahead of the new campaign.
“It’s still early days and the players are looking okay,” he continued.
“It’s as expected at this stage. There’s plenty of scope to improve, as you’d expect, but we are only in the second week of pre-season. Everybody knows what’s expected of them and obviously we start with the games programme with Gainsborough on Saturday.
“Everybody has got to get their heads down and perform to the best of their ability. If everyone does that, we will have some real competition and it’s a nice headache to have in terms of team selection and substitute selection. If you’re looking to change things, inevitably from the bench, we want to have a bench strong enough to change proceedings.
“We’re under no illusions that it will be a tough season. Nothing comes easy, so we have to graft and be ready for any other challenges that are thrown at us. Football being football and sport being sport, there are always ups and downs, but we will be trying to minimise the downs and maximise the ups and enjoy it.
“We can’t fear anything and we have to be full of endeavour and draw upon the knowledge and experiences that we have. We’ve got a great season to look forward to and a lot of really good games coming up.”
See much more from manager Mark Robins on his take on pre-season so far, the upcoming trip to Marbella and the 12th Man on The Iron Player HD.