Mark Bennett and his strength and conditioning team have been putting the Ospreys' international contingent through their paces after they reported back for pre-season training on Monday.
Players who had been on Wales duty in the three test tour of Australia were joined by the region’s Wales U20 players who spent June at the Junior World Championships in South Africa, along with scrum-half Kahn Fotuali’i, who featured for Samoa in games against Japan and Scotland.
The group underwent the same series of tests as the earlier returnees four weeks ago, which have been specifically designed to assess whether they had hit the goals set by Bennett at the end of last season. The tests focussed on speed, agility and endurance in the morning, before moving into the gym to test their strength and power.
Bennett commented:
“The boys who returned today have been put through their paces in exactly the same way as those who came back in June. Everybody in the squad has been given personal goals, and the expectation is that without fail, they reach those standards.
“Pre-season in a crucial period for us as it allows us to put in place the building blocks for the year ahead. The series of tests that the players will go through allows us to highlight any areas of weakness that they have, see where they are exactly and then allow us to focus both their and our energy in the right direction.
“The expectation is that players take individual responsibility to ensure they return in the condition required, allowing us to kick-on and focus on improving the areas they need to work on most instead of starting from scratch all over again.”