Coming into a new pre-season is always a juggling act for an Under 20s team, as some of the squad consists of NYC veterans while others have never trained in a fully professional environment before.
With players coming and going from year to year, it is always a fairly disjointed squad that a coach has to pull together in the pre-season, but nib Newcastle Knights NYC coach Todd Lowrie says his side is building well for 2017.
“A lot of them haven’t trained this way before, so they’ve been doing a lot more fitness work and gym work than before,” Lowrie explained.
“You can tell the new guys that come in are a little bit skinnier than everyone else, but to their credit they’ve all trained hard and worked hard in the gym.
“They’ve all put on some size and they’re not looking so out of place as they did at the start of the pre-season.”
Trial matches are on the horizon now as well, and Lowrie has three games lined up for his young side to determine what the final make-up of the Round 1 team will be.
The young Knights will be taking on two top eight sides from last year, and will also come up against a youth representative team.
