SHEFFIELD EAGLES coach Craig Lingard says creating a fitter and more resilient side is a priority for his second campaign at the helm.

The former Keighley, Batley and Castleford coach has a first full pre-season to work with his squad – however it looks – and will aim to put it to good use after a disappointing year.

Lingard didn’t take the reins in the steel city until December, leaving him playing catch-up ahead of a challenging campaign which hit a new low with a painful 70-8 home defeat by Bradford.

Sheffield had slumped to a 58-6 loss at Toulouse in the previous game – and went into their 22nd league match at home to Featherstone with only four wins to their credit, the last of those in mid-June.

Reviewing the Bradford clash, Lingard said: “It’s where we’ve been for majority of the season and it highlighted our deficiencies.

“With disruptions on and off the field, we knew this year was going to be tough, I just don’t think anyone thought that it would be as tough as it has been.

“The last few months have highlighted things we can’t allow to happen again next year. We haven’t been physically fit enough or strong enough, and we are not resilient enough.

“We have a bit of a crack in our defence, and that turns into the Grand Canyon because we haven’t got the resilience or backbone to cope with things that don’t go perfectly right. We crumble.”

Lingard took some consolation from the debut of former York winger Will Oakes, who due to injuries, hadn’t played since July 2022.

“He came to us just to train and get back into some sort of fitness with a view to next season, but he’s progressed really well, and with the injuries we have got, we felt we could put him on the bench,” he said of the 26-year-old Hull KR product.

“I thought he did pretty well.”