Warrington train with Rabbitohs

James Gordon

Warrington Wolves have this week trained alongside the South Sydney Rabbitohs as part of their pre-season training camp Down Under.

Around 250 supporters attended the session, held at the Australian Technology Park Performance Centre at Redfern Oval, with the Wolves working agility, speed and fitness, and the Rabbitohs working on ball skills, fitness and defence. The teams then came together in two separate opposed sessions, testing both teams’ attacking and defensive set ups.

Wolves back-rower Ben Westwood says that the training camp in Sydney has been great for him and the squad.

He said: “It’s been great to come out here and enjoy the good weather while we’re training and do some training with a few different people. It’s a great experience for us and some of the young guys are getting the chance to see what level they need to play at to play in the first team.”

“We haven’t really talked about the NRL or anything like that (with the Australian players in the Warrington squad). We’re just concentrating on our training in the good weather and getting ready for the start of our season.”

For Matt King, it’s a unique situation, training with both his new team-mates at the Rabbitohs, as well as the team-mates he left behind at the end of last season when he opted to return to the NRL.

He said: “It’s Christmas time all over again for me, to have two sets of great mates here training. It’s a very unique situation for myself. It is different (training against your opposition), but I guess we can do that because we won’t be competing against each other during the season. We won’t be giving away too many secrets but it’s a great initiative from both clubs to play this game.”

Warrington take on South Sydney in a pre-season friendly game on January 27th.