Sheffield Eagles’ rising young halfback Cory Aston has used a family trip to Australia to train with leading NRL club St George-Illawarra.
Aston was Down Under with dad and coach Mark, and also spent time at South Sydney and Cronulla.
Coach Mark said: “Cory had a bit of a strain over there but he did train with St George and went to watch the Rabbitohs and Cronulla as well.
“It’s something we think will do him a lot of good.”
Aston senior also used the trip to catch up with former Eagles Carl Briggs, Jeff Hardy and Brendon Lindsay.
Briggs is currently head coach of Burleigh Bears in the Queensland Cup, while Lindsay is working with the under-20s side at Ipswich Jets.
Aston also spoke to potential new signings, although they are unlikely to be for the 2014 season.
The Eagles have confirmed details of their pre-season training camp in Limoux, which will see Aston’s squad fly out to France on Thursday January 30 and return on Sunday February 2.
The trip will include a match against Limoux Grizzlies on the Saturday, and is part of the partnership agreement between the two clubs.
They made the same trip last year, but the match had to be postponed due to bad weather.
Sheffield Chairman Ian Swire said: “We have a great relationship with the club, their President Laurent Moreno and fellow director Frederic Teixido, who played a number of games for us back in 1999.
“They, along with myself, Mark and everyone at both clubs, share a passion for the development of the game and in particular youth development.
“As an example of this, we will be taking some of our elite development players who have been training with the first team during pre-season to further aid their development.”
