NORTH WALES CRUSADERS may not have a game until Sunday, March 23, when they visit Goole, but they aren’t getting much time to relax.
Instead, the squad will be setting off on a nine-mile hike on Saturday as they head up Mount Snowdon.
While also raising funds to help the work undertaken by the Welsh Mountain Zoo, coach Carl Forster is hopeful the challenge will stand his squad in good stead for the season ahead.
“Rather than flogging the lads on the field for a few weeks we just wanted to do something a bit different,” he explained.
“We can get on the field, get the rugby ball out and work as hard as we like, but I wanted to do something that needs a different type of fitness and gives us the chance to spend plenty of time with each other.
“I know the lads are fit physically, but in a part-time environment, you don’t really get the chance to test the mental side of things as much.
“You train on the field for an hour and a half or work inside a gym or video room, but it’s very rare that you have the lads together for twelve hours, to walk a distance like that with backpacks on.
“It’s a seven o’clock start, so they’ll be having to get out of bed at half past four or five o’clock, so it really taps into that different side of their fitness.
“I’m sure that if we have a successful year, we’ll look back on this challenge as a real building block.
“To be honest this is something I have always wanted to do but never done, and only a couple of the lads have ever done it before so it’s something new for the majority of us.
“With being a Welsh club and having that connection, it gives us the chance for a bit of team bonding and to raise some funds for charity.”
Visit https://www.justgiving.com/page/nwcrusaders-yrwyddfa to donate.