Hull KR youngsters prepare for pre-season surprise after cleaning, roofing and piping work last year

Hull Kingston Rovers' Louix Gorman said the young players at the club are ready for the challenge as they await another pre-season surprise from the club.

Rovers players aged 21 and under are in for pre-season day one tomorrow morning - and that will involve unknown work experience too. Last year they were surprised with tasks such as cleaning, roofing and piping work. That helps the club test players' mentalities and show them life away from rugby and give them perspective on their own jobs. Those players are set to have testing and training in the morning followed by work experience.

19-year-old Gorman, a promising and versatile back who was has appeared for Rovers in Super League and was in the recent extended Ireland squad, said that last year "we knew we had work experience but didn't know to what extent".

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Looking ahead, he said: "There's been conversations had already about what we might have to do and how hard it will be! This year the boys are ready for it, ready to attack it, and have a positive mindset.

"Last year, at half past seven, everyone was in the maintenance office and they tell you 'you are cleaning seats - here's your pot, here's your water, go to the West Stand and clean it'. I think it's a way of mentally testing us to see what we are like as people and not just players. I think it's really good that the club do it.

"Last year it included stuff like general maintenance of the ground, bushes, trees, making sure they are all fine, litter picking. A lot of the boys did up the new gym, it got refurbed. The floor was flattened out, painted, all the gear was assembled. And we also went out on building sites last year, 7 until 2 in freezing weather - in some ways that was harder than the pre-season itself!

"A reason the club do it is that they don't want us to take anything for granted because, playing rugby, it can be taken away from you in an instant, with an injury. It refreshes you. It gives you the perspective on how lucky we are to have what we have, and to be paid to play a sport that we love. Especially when, with Rovers, the fan base is primarily working class - a lot of people will be doing jobs that we do in work experience.

"For me personally, it massively opened my eyes because I came from GCSEs and A-levels in a classroom, it was nothing like being out on a building site. I enjoyed doing it because it's something different but it is tough, and it needs to be tough.

"I remember doing ground work one day, someone's house was being refurbed, and you are constantly moving slabs and breaking slabs, with a wheel barrow, moving gravel, doing all the work that you take for granted, that needs to be done. And we still trained and went to the gym so that was the biggest challenge.

"Some of the boys did roofing, made pipes, and bits like that. Some of the tasks can be monotonous, they have to be done and there's no other way of doing it."

Repetitiveness of the tasks is a regular challenge as well as the physical aspects - but Gorman singled out one job as the most challenging in that regard. "Cleaning seats is probably the most boring thing we had to do!" he says. "We cleaned the whole West Stand in one day and it's so boring, there was bird poo everywhere on the seats. We did 'rock, paper, scissors' to see who had to clean which seats! And it can get cold and miserable when you are outside.

"It shows us how lucky we are to be playing rugby. It makes me want to stay in rugby and maintain what I do now so it makes you work hard."

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