It's 5 AM and the Hull KR staff are in their element. Rovers' players think they're heading off on a morning stroll together today ahead of an Ironman challenge in the afternoon. However, they're soon to be mistaken.

See, there is no morning work at all. In reality, the coaching staff have set up an ambush wrestling session on the beach and now it is their job to wake all the players up and let them know.

Cunningly, they have acquired the services of a hotel security guard who has a master key, who lets Danny Ward, Shaun Kenny-Dowell et al into the players' rooms one by one to give them a very sudden and, you would suspect, unpleasant awakening.

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Both Ward and Kenny-Dowall take great delight in detailing the reactions of the players. Ward says a few bolted in pure shock. Others asked if they were on the receiving end of a prank. Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, meanwhile, cheered after his early alarm and thought the idea was amazing. "He loves wrestle," Kenny-Dowall adds.

You can only begin to imagine what the early-morning dog walkers were thinking as their usually peaceful jaunt now featured the sight of 30-odd behemoths throwing each other around on the beach, all doing what they could to avoid feeling the chilling sting of the morning sea while grappling with a counterpart.

Every club uses warm-weather training camps differently. Some clubs get on the training pitch as much as they can to make most of the fields not impacted by the British winter. Others have a lot of downtime and use it for team bonding. My only overriding assessment of Hull KR's time overseas is that it is absolutely anything but a holiday.

Everything is done by design too. This early-morning session tests their resilience and ability to handle challenges they didn't expect. Before we arrived on camp, Tommy Coyle, the champion boxer and close friend of the club, had the team creating rafts out of anything the players could get hold of to spark creative thoughts and teamwork. Another session saw players dropped off at an unknown location with only a map in the quest to find their way back. One thing is for certain, this absolutely is not a holiday for these players.

After breakfast, the players split into groups for what Rovers call connection meetings. Social groups, put together by the coaching staff, all go out and do something together, whether it be having a coffee or heading out on a walk. These groups are designed to ensure that players are spending time with others they otherwise might not get the opportunity to do so. It's a bonding exercise that encourages players to get to know all of their teammates. Willie Peters has regularly pointed out that the time together as a group is just as important as the training itself.

Eventually, the players return, load up on food and get ready for the Ironman challenge, taking place at the club's base for the trip, Tenerife Top Training. The group is split into teams and together, they must get through 90 kilometres of cycling on a watt bike and around 60 lengths of the Olympic-sized swimming pool.

It's fair to say that some of the players didn't quite have the best swimming technique, a fact exacerbated by the fact they were sharing the pool with the French national swimming team. Elliot Minchella, in his own words, is a 'struggle swimmer,' whatever that means.

One thing that stands out is the leadership of Rhyse Martin. The back-rower leads the communication and organisation of his team, delegating the workload out and making sure players are swapping in and out of the pool as they get tired.

As that goes on, it gives me some time to have a conversation with Peters. For those wondering, Rovers are all clear on the injury front right now, excluding Sam Luckley after wrist surgery in November. Pre-season always produces the odd niggle here and there but there's nothing of note that will impact team selection for the season as it stands right now.

Ward is having a great day. For the entire challenge he sits basically motionless, sunglasses on, bucket hat on show. If he had a tinnie in his hand, he would look like the ultimate Brit abroad.

Upon completion, that is training done for the day. The Rovers squad have their first day off on Wednesday before returning to training Thursday morning.

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