It’s very much back to basics for Hull FC this pre-season. Setting their standards, the squad are very much centred on hard work, with the focus on the simple elements of rugby league.

For Zak Hardaker, that sits fine, with the centre a vocal part of training. One of many experienced recruits at the club, it’s about passing that knowhow and knowledge on, and sometimes that can be through the simplest forms.

That, as per Hull Live’s training insights earlier this month, has seen Hull perfect things like the play the ball, their wrestle, and their tackle technique, with shape also present in training as they work on their structure and how they want to play under a new head coach in John Cartwright. Simply put, they’ve narrowed their focus, with Hardaker giving the lowdown on the first block of training, which finished on Friday with the squad breaking off for Christmas and returning in the new year.

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"We’re bringing things back to basics, but we’re doing the basics really, really well," Hardaker explained. "It sounds silly to say, defend well, kick well, high completions, and repeat, but that’s it.

"I don’t want to touch too much on last year, but some things didn’t go to plan in that aspect, but the simple things within the game are the most important. Last year is last year. We touched on it the first week, but it’s gone now. There’s a new group of players, and we’ve been training hard. We train hard, and we expect to win. We’re a really competitive group. You can feel the hunger, and hopefully that will stand us in good stead next year."

He continued: "All the boys have been buying in to what John and the rest of the coaching staff have tried to implicate to us. We’re getting to know each other; it’s a newly formed group, and we’ve got a lot of new players, but we’ve got a good break over Christmas now. We’ve been pushed really hard the last week, and now we can put our feet up.

"Its been intense. The first two weeks were a lot of testing and getting a bearing of people. We’ve then had a really solid five weeks or so where we’ve really tried to amplify the load. The running has been tough, and the blocks of conditioning have been tough, but we’ve tried to do a lot of rugby stuff on the side of it. We’re doing rugby drills when under fatigue, so we’ve been getting out of breath and then going into drills that we want to lead on into the season. It’s been really good so far."

Joining Hull, Hardaker is already well acquainted with the Hull squad. He knows Aidan Sezer and Tom Briscoe from his time at Leeds, Amir Bourouh and Cade Cust from Wigan, and of course, John Asiata, Ed Chamberlain, Oliver Holmes, and Briscoe again from Leigh. That’s helped him settle into a club that he already had a lot of respect for, with Cartwright setting his tone this pre-season alongside Andy Last and Simon Grix.

"He’s great," Hardaker said on Cartwright. "He’s straight to the point, and he’s very black and white—mind the pun. He’s very clear in what he wants from us as a playing group, and the standards around the place, he set them from day one, and they’ve been pretty high. That’s in place on and off the field. We’ve been doing that.

"We’ve also been going around the communities a lot before Christmas, and that’s been really good to meet the fans, get that one club mentality, and get everybody on board. It’s been a great effort so far, and I’m really looking forward to starting the season in a few weeks."

And as for Grix and Last, Hardaker, who had signed a two-year deal at Hull, added: "Grixy was here last year. It was a tough time for him, but I think he learned a lot about the group, which is invaluable for the next two or so years.

"Then Lasty, everyone around Hull speaks so highly of him. I worked with him at England a couple of years ago. His resume just speaks for itself; he’s a really good guy, and he’s really passionate about the club and what he wants to do for it. That just feeds onto us players. When you see coaches so passionate about the town, the club, you want to do well for them as well as anybody else.

"They’ve both had a good impact and input; they get stuff from Carty and drip-feed it down to us players. It’s really important that we take it on board and that we give it a good go. We’ve definitely done that so far."

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