A regular feature of any pre-season is the introduction of trialists, as clubs take the opportunity to look at players, with individuals doing the same as they train with first team squads with a view to securing a deal.
That’s no different at Brunton Park this summer, with manager Paul Simpson confirming that he currently has three in the building.
“We do have three here and we’re having a little look at them,” he said. “They may be involved on Friday night, but we'll wait and see on that.
“There's a lot of sessions to go before Friday, but there's areas of the squad that need strengthening and we've got an opportunity to have a look at them before we do anything, so that gives us a bit of a head start.
“I won’t name them yet, I may name them on Friday, or they may just go down as A Trialist, I don't know yet. I want to see how they go over the week, really and we'll decide from there.”
On his other squad members, he said: “They’re looking good. The thing is, they’ve hardly had any time off, just four weeks, even though two weeks into that they started their programme to prepare for this pre-season.
“That means we don’t have to thrash them because we’re starting at a good level of fitness. We have a plan in place that we’re working towards and the players are looking good and bright.
“We have to make sure we work them hard but don’t injure them, because we can’t afford any injuries at the moment. I’m looking forward to getting the games started on Friday.
“We’ll have a full week of training this week then the Friday night game. Next week we get into the Tuesday, Saturday games which are the main part of pre-season. We’re looking forward to getting started on that.
“The good thing is that it’s a clean slate for everybody. Everybody has done their job to get us to where we are, but now we’ve got a group who all have to show us they deserve to start the season.”
And with the ever-growing evidence based and scientific approach to training, it will come as little surprise to learn that each session is planned to the smallest detail.
“We’ve got the sessions planned and we work to a percentage of match data as we go through the weeks,” he explained. “This week is three times match data, so they’ll get the total distances in as well as high intensity and high speed stuff.
“Unfortunately there’s no easy way to get fit, you have to go through it, you’ve got to run and you’ve got to hurt. On top of that they’re doing lots and lots of football.
“They’re getting loads of touches of the ball to get their feet back and their coordination back. There’s a plan to it all, it doesn’t always go exactly as you’d want, but we’re working to try and get it right.
“Pre-season is very different now. When I was a player you didn’t even see a football for the first week, you just ran.
“We get the work into them now with the footballs involved as well. We’ll do games where the pitches will get bigger to increase their distances.
“We’ve done smaller games today [Monday], then Tuesday we’re going to work between boxes before we go to a more usual 11 v 11 size on Wednesday. You can disguise the running with footballs, and that’s what the players want.”