The CFMEU Canberra Raiders are back on deck for the 2010 pre-season as they began their first round of fitness testing at Raiders HQ today.

Not all of the squad was on hand for the first blow out of the pre-season with representative players Joel Monaghan, Terry Campese, Tom Learoyd-Lahrs and Josh Dugan (Prime Ministers XIII) and former under 20’s stars Travis Waddell and Daniel Vidot set to return on Monday.

The Raiders were also without the obvious pairing of David Shillington and Bronson Harrison who are still on representative duties, but were joined by new recruit Danny Galea.

Despite the limited numbers the Green Machine were put through their paces in a series of fitness tests by Strength and Conditioning Coach Matt Ford under the ever watchful eye of Coach David Furner.

Furner said it was exciting to have the team reassembled ahead of what was shaping up to be a tough pre-season and said he liked what he had seen in the commitment and effort in the first hit out of the new season.

“Looking on the results on the tests we did last pre-season they’re all above it and although they’ve had a good break and off-season they have obviously been doing some training,” Furner said. “We’ve come in here today to begin the testing phase of the season and we will be right into it Monday when we’re joined by most of the squad for our first team sessions.”

After a strong back end of the season Furner said the team was hoping to continue improving on their performances and said they had already spoken about what they needed to work on to achieve this.

“We are looking to improve in all aspects of our game and it starts with the pre-season. I spoke to the guys this morning and talked about lifting in everything we do and we have a theme amongst the players and the coaching staff and its something we’re looking forward to,” he said.

Raiders skipper Alan Tongue was as upbeat as ever as he embarked on his twelfth pre-season with the Green Machine and said already he sensed a healthy attitude among the playing group which was a good sign.

“I think everyone is reasonably happy with their results today, obviously some players lose their fitness quicker than others and some can do it fairly easy after a break,” Tongue said. “There’s plenty of optimism in the team for sure heading into the pre-season and we saw the young guys blooded into the squad at the back end of last season which is encouraging for us.”
Tongue said the whole squad knows what they need to do this year to achieve the goals they set in the upcoming weeks and said there were already some key areas which have been discussed as being a main focus of the group.

“We need to realise that if success is to come we need to work hard as a group, be more disciplined and especially with our away form keep improving on that and get some more wins away from home,” he said. “Its an important pre-season for us because we have a lot of guys going into their second year and this can sometimes be hard for the young kids and we need to work hard and keep pushing each other wherever we can.”