A MONTH into Wolves’ pre-season training programme, Jon Clarke says the players are doing all that is being asked of them.

Under a new regime and on the back of a poor 2017 campaign, The Wire are now laying the foundations to turn their performance around.

“We’ve done three-and-a-half weeks of the programme, as they had a few days off last week, and we’re going into another three-week block,” said Clarke, Wolves’ head of strength and conditioning under head coach Steve Price.

“We’re happy with where we’re up to at the minute.

“Physically we’re stressing them, there’s no doubt about that, and in all sorts of ways and in particular in terms of rugby.”

Not all Wire pre-season campaigns in the modern era have included work with a ball or team structures at this early stage.

“We’re certainly delving into the details of the game itself,” said former hooker Clarke, who made 263 appearances for the club between 2001 and 2011.

“Positionally, they’re doing a lot and in terms of defensive systems we’re certainly doing our research and homework.

“We’re certainly working very hard at this moment in time.”

An element in this approach is having a number of new players and coaches at the club all needing to understand each other.

“That’s one factor,” said Clarke.

“You’ve got to try and bring everyone together, be all singing off the same page and all be having the same DNA in terms of what we expect and what we’re doing.

“This is what pre-seasons are for. Pre-seasons from every aspect set up your season.

“We’re working very hard physically, mentally, culturally and also from a rugby point of view as well. We’re certainly trying to cover a lot of bases.

“The lads have been immense, they’ve just been lapping it up. Can’t ask any more of them at the moment.

“All we ask is that they apply themselves the best they can every day and to a man they’ve done that, so I’m not sure what more we can ask of them at this point in time.

“We will ask more of them at some point between now and Christmas.

“We’ll really stress them and push them to the edge with one or two things that we’ve got coming up before Christmas and we’ll do the same after Christmas at the right time.

“That’s more about finding out about them as people and what characters we’ve got in the group as well.”

When asked which aspect of this pre-season’s work strikes him most, Clarke alluded to the depth of the preparations.

“Just the level of detail in terms of how they’re coached and what they’re being coached is certainly higher than I’ve experienced in my career,” said Clarke.

“I’m sure it’s as high if not higher than any of our boys have had up to date in their careers.

“There’s a lot of “it’s not what you do it’s how you do it” and we’re trying to arm them with as much as possible really.”

An army camp in the UK is in store for the players later this month, a change in tact to warm-weather training trips of recent times.

“We’re going away for a few days,” said Clarke.

“We’re doing our pre-season different this year in terms of how we’re testing the lads.

“An army camp in the third week of December is something that we’re going to expose them to and see how they handle the challenges that they’re going to face over the three days that we’re there.”