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Schofield held his first squad meeting at Craven Park on Tuesday night, when he reaffirmed his desire to serve up expansive, entertaining and winning rugby league. The former Leeds and Great Britain captain will be back at Hindpool tonight to lead a fitness session with the players – before a month of “hard pre-season training” begins next week. “We had a team meeting and it went very, very well,” said Schoey, who confirmed his assistant boss Nigel Wright won’t be joining him for another couple of weeks as he has work commitments as a personal fitness trainer in London.

“I outlined the way I want the team to play, my philosophy on how we are going to play the game – which is the way it should be played – and the response I had from the players was great. “I put my points across, and the body language and the smiles on the faces of the players suggested they seem very happy with the way they are going to be asked to play next season.” “We didn’t get on the park on Tuesday night,” he added.

“But I’ll be back on Thursday (tonight) looking at a bit of fitness and a few game-related situations from a visual point of view to see what sort of distance they can be passing the ball and this sort of stuff. “Then the week after, up to December 21st, it’ll be hard pre-season, three times a week on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturday mornings.”

On the situation with his number two Wright, Schoey explained: “Nigel is working in London at the moment. “He’s a personal fitness trainer and it could be a couple of weeks before he can make it up, because he has to get his schedule sorted with the people he trains.

“It looks like it could be a fortnight, hopefully maybe before, but it could be a fortnight before Nigel makes it on to the training paddock.

“Nigel is going to be a big help to me, without a doubt. One of the questions that has been put to me was that the Barrow players have lacked a bit of fitness throughout the season, so one thing’s for sure the players won’t be lacking fitness come the start, the middle or the end of the season.”

Having welcomed new signings Jamie Thackray and Mark Gleeson to the club, Schofield said he has no plans to enter the transfer market again in the near future, preferring instead to take his time to assess the strengths and weaknesses of his current playing staff. The 45-year-old Leeds-based boss said: “I’ve got a squad of 21 – everyone is on a level playing field, everyone is injury-free. “We don’t have a reserve squad so I guess I will be looking for a squad of around 25.

“The squad is being addressed, the players are being told our philosophy, and I’ll be monitoring the situation in pre-season to see if anything needs adding. “For the moment everyone is looking to get into training, everyone is looking to enjoy themselves and that’s what we’re going to be doing in the first four weeks in charge.”

As well as recent recruits Thackray and Gleeson, another player at the team meeting was former Askam amateur Jamie Butler, who is currently out of contract.