Whitehaven head coach James Coyle says that a conscious decision was made to bring players in early for pre-season training and is delighted by the progress made by the side after three weeks.

Haven started their pre-season preparations at the start of November, before a number of Championship and even Super League clubs, but Coyle justified his decision to start training early.

“The lads had six weeks off and for me that’s enough time for them,” he said. “We’ve got quite a few new faces to integrate and last year I don’t think we prepared well enough, not through the way we trained but because we didn’t have a team until the season started.

“We’ve had 20 lads in training at the same time so far this pre-season and it’s great to see, when last year you wouldn’t have that many for some sessions.

“We’re in the middle of our third week and this has been our most intense one so far.

“We’ll then taper down for seven days because we have to give them a chance to recuperate and go into another intense block of sessions after that.”

Coyle praised the work of strength and conditioning coach Matty Johnson and the support staff at the club, adding: “Matty has brought a few lads on board and we’ve now got a bigger back-room team.

“It’s good because there’s no hiding place for players now. They need to make sure they are putting the work in that’s required.”

The Haven boss also hopes that a second pre-season friendly can be organised ahead of the 2016 campaign starting on February 7.

“We are trying to get one organised for the week before our game against Workington [on January 23],” he continued.

“We’d like it to be that weekend because we don’t want to start the season too early.

“If we had it any earlier then the lads would be in from the start of January until October and that’s a long time to be playing for.”