Workington Reds and Whitehaven meet up tonight at the County Ground to play their first pre-season friendly.
Whitehaven, in fact, have only had one training session, whereas the Reds will have had four under new manager Mark Fell.
Both have the same targets from tonight – to get game time for their players and to look at trialists – although the eventual winners will collect the Shaun Hocking Memorial Trophy.
Jon Karl-Benson, the Whitehaven manager said: “We wanted to give the lads a longer break this year as we have had stuff to sort out off the pitch with our Reserves set-up and future Development team.
“We go into tonight with a squad of 24 which is made-up of lads from last season, two experienced lads returning after taking time-out last season, four new lads who are playing as trialists and four lads who are only 17 but have followed our pathway through from juniors into the first team.
“We also have four regulars who are missing because they are away on holiday for the Euros.
“Tonight will be all about the work-out for us. We expect it to be hard but know it will do us good in the long run.
“We will probably field a team each half as we want to have a look at as many players as possible.”
There’s a similar message from the Workington manager Mark Fell who takes charge of his team in a match for the first time.
“We want to get some established players like Dav Symington, Steven Rigg and Stephen Swinglehurst on the grass again and they will probably be involved for half a game.
“There will be changes made at half-time and young lads who have been around the squad for a while will get a run out to let me have more of an in-depth look.
“We have some players from around the area who we have in on trial and will be involved so that we can have a look at them, along with some trialists from further afield.
“It will be something similar when we play Coppull at Longridge on Saturday and by the time we play the two Carlisle teams – United and City – we should know more about the players we have been looking at,” he said.
