Holland’s Preseason Diary – Part 2

Jonny Holland continues to give us a player’s insight into Preseason 2016, discussing the past week’s step up in intensity, getting used to the new coaching set-up and giving his thoughts on Munster’s new adidas 2016/17 alternate jersey.

It hardly seems like a week since I sat down to write Part 1 of this diary. With such a heavy workload at present, these are probably eight of the fastest weeks in the season and those weeks pass even faster as the intensity increases. 

Since the end of last week things have stepped up another level, mainly due to the arrival of Rassie and Jacques. They know each other quite well so it has helped them to hit the ground running. Jacques has had a lot of interaction with us, making a big impact on our defence and guys are responding well to his line of thinking. He brings massive intensity, but also a really personal outlook on the game. Felix has fallen into his coaching role very naturally and is full of excitement, given the intensity he is allowed bring to the smallest of tasks. It’s been a bit of a shock to some of us, mostly backs. We would normally keep the contact bit until the final couple of weeks of preseason and build up nicely into the matches. Not this time round and that is definitely good for us. The Tuesday and Friday sessions this week have been some of the toughest I’ve been involved in. Billy Holland even gave one of them a 10 on our rating system which says a lot! I asked Aled (Head of Fitness) if that was a bit of scare tactics or if this was the standard expected of us. Of course he said the latter but that is what we need to constantly improve.

It has been good to get the ball back in hand and get started on our attack philosophy. Systems and drills aside, more than anything it’s about getting used to the new coaches’ personalities – how they want us to train, the standards they are going to bring to us, and vice versa, the standards we are going to accept from ourselves around them. Skills can be a bit rusty after some down time so it is nice to get some extras in before the coaches get their hands on us in training. Andy Conway has been spearheading a skills group in the mornings since last week and these little extra sessions will stand to us throughout the season. Everyone’s very excited about the way we are looking to play the game and hopefully it will bring the best out of us come the start of the season.

The past week saw the launch of our new adidas alternate jersey. There’s been a lot of positive feedback from the squad and hopefully I’ll get the opportunity to tog out in it. The gear in general has gone down very well with friends and family. The purple definitely took a bit of getting used to but has grown on me a lot. They’ll already be eyeing up which pieces they want at home. My older gear is always shared around at home. My dad gets the usual jacket and shorts and my brother gets dibs on everything else. He normally has a say on which bits can be given away to friends but it is good to share it around with the people who follow me all over the country and support the team. A lot of lads give gear to their families, charities and local clubs too.

Recovery is a massive part of preseason considering the load that our bodies go through. The coaches try to vary the recovery sessions to keep things fresh, otherwise preseason can become pretty tough mentally. This week we are doing some yoga classes which won’t be easy. I usually stick to the pool in my recovery routine but it will be good to change things up and I look forward to telling you about my yoga experience along with the rest of preseason developments next week.

Talk then,
Jonny.