The weekend camp at TAS was the first of two ahead of next year’s tour to Hong Kong and Singapore, and was really to just touch base.

“It was all about having a look at the team set-up and structure,” coach Garry Walsh said.

The squad was selected from the Country Schools Championships back in June and is “a good mix of boys”.

Players from the region figure prominently, with New England having a particularly strong representation.

The ARU participation manager for the North West, Walsh has stepped in as head coach and forwards coach and will be assisted by Jamie Moore (skills coach), Harry Witt (backs coach), Jim Pennington (manager) and Jed Piesley (strength and conditioning).

Being the last time they will see the boys until probably just before they depart in March, they gave the boys a program to follow over the summer. 

“We did some benchmark testing on Saturday,” Walsh said. “We’ll do follow-up testing in March.”