Jon Mellish has seen it all before after three seasons with Carlisle United, putting in over 100 appearances for the club.
But he is convinced that pre-season has never been as tough as Paul Simpson’s squad is being put through its paces.
United, who drew 1-1 in a closed doors game with Greenock Morton yesterday, are now preparing for Saturday’s attractive home friendly with Bolton Wanderers.
Mellish told the club’s website: “It’s been a really hard pre-season. I think I’ve been saying to everyone that it’s been the hardest one yet, especially them first few days.
“They left me in bits, but it’s really good for us. It’s getting us ready for the season ahead. We’ve got some harder pre-season games coming up and we want to test ourselves.
“It feels like we’re in a good position at the moment. We’ve made some good signings and I think there’ll be some more as well to add to that.
“But this is my fourth pre-season here, a few gaffers, and this is definitely the hardest. I don’t remember any of them being this hard. I’ve been getting home and I can hardly walk.
“It’s exactly what we need and maybe what we haven’t had in previous years. It will only get us more ready for this year, but it’s definitely been the toughest one I’ve had.”
Explaining why that’s been the case, he commented: “It’s just the intensity and the workload. We’ve been doing more and he’s been really pushing us, and that’s what he wants.
“He wants to test us, see how much he can get out of us, so when it gets tough during the season we remember these days, remember how hard it was and we can get through it.
“We’re feeling the benefit and I think we’re getting used to it after a couple of weeks now. I know we haven’t played the hardest of teams yet and the harder ones are coming up, but we’re feeling a lot fitter and really getting through games well.
“And obviously there’s no hiding because everything is tracked. Our heart rates, running distances, the GPS is tracking every single thing we do. So there’s no point anybody trying to fake a little bit.
“They can see how hard we’re working, we can trust that, and it’s just pushing us even more to test ourselves and keep going even further.”
