CHRIS Bridge is confident he will be sufficiently prepared to feature in his Testimonial game against Hull KR on January 25.

Ending last season with a double hernia and ruptured abductor, he has had to ease his way through pre-season training.

On the warm weather training camp with Wolves in Tenerife this week, he was pleased to have completed a day’s double workout as he attempts to close the gap on teammates’ fitness levels.

“It’ll take me a bit to fully get up to speed,” said the 30-year-old utility back, who has told Wolves’ head of coaching and rugby Tony Smith he wants the stand-off job this year.

“It took time for the abductor to heal. I’ll play some part against Hull KR but I haven’t got a full game in me yet.”

Simon Grix is with the squad on the Canary Island, despite receiving bad news concerning repair to the double spiral leg break suffered in the win at St Helens last September.

The back rower needs to stay on crutches for a longer period, which has led to a delay in the shoulder operation he requires and puts his likely return date back to June.

Bridge said: “It’s been a tough one for Simon but he’ll come through it bigger and better.

“He was meant to come off his crutches last week but it hadn’t healed as well as he’d hoped.

“I thought he would have taken it pretty badly but it’s just one of those things and he’s been good around the place here in Tenerife.

“He does his weights, watches us train and then does some swimming.”

Bridge said the time in Tenerife has given the squad opportunity to focus on ball work and style of play.

“The lads had been flogged back home in the cold when you’re prevented from doing much ball work,” he explained.

“We’ve been doing sessions in the morning and afternoon, then having meetings at night when we’ve discussed how we want to play this year, the moves we want to keep or ditch, what we think worked last year.

“We’ve got some new ideas that we’ve been practising and it looks like we’re going to be throwing the ball around a bit.”

And he said the players are keen to get the season off to a good start when Salford Red Devils visit in Super League Round One on Saturday, February 7.

“Salford are talking about putting a marker down against us but we want to get off to a good start,” added Bridge.

“Last year we got a bit of a flogging at the beginning, but hopefully we’ll start off on the front foot this time.”

Bridge’s Testimonial game, kick off 3.30pm, follows a friendly with Toulouse at 1pm.