Pre Season Post Mortem

1. Shuttle Runs (AKA Beep, bleep or yoyo test)
Nothing too creative about this one. Stand under one set of goalposts and run to the 22 and back, halfway and back, opposition 22 and back and other goaline...and back. It's the 'and back' that kills.
An absolute necessity is to jog the shorter distances and sprint two lengths of the pitch. As your body shouts 'Slower!' or 'Stop!' the coach screams 'Faster!' or 'Once more!'. End result? Anything between giddiness and total blackout, usually accompanied with severe retching.

2. Having a (Medicine) Ball
Just to add a bit of variety - who wants to run up and down a pitch all night? - the clever coach will get his men sprinting round it. The clinically insane amongst their number order their victims to do it with a medicine ball.
If resources are tight and the only sort of medicine available at your club comes from optics behind the bar, fear not. Simply replace the missing apparatus with an even heavier team-mate who must be given a piggy back every step of the way.
Some coaches are even worse and prefer to kill two squad members at once by doing the same activity but using a fireman's lift - without a cricket box. Try carrying anything after 300 metres on someone's shoulders.

3. Wrestling
Without doubt this is the worst pre-season discipline I have ever done. It involves putting one hand at the back of your partner's neck and the other on his shoulder. The idea is to thrown said partner off his feet whilst all the time preventing him doing the same to you.
Sounds like competitive cuddling? Try it. I have never encountered a more tiring and physically demanding exercise in my life. After about two minutes you're happy to be thrown just for the lie down.
At least that's what I told Adam Caves, Moseley's current hooker, when he rag-dolled me from one sideline to the next.
No shame there, I hear you say, he's a professional front row player whose stock in trade is upper body strength. Indeed so but he was 18 at the time.

4. Hill Running
Sprinting on the flat is all very well but to be truly nasty one needs an incline. The steeper and longer the better.
Donkey's Hollow leading to Cannon Hill Park in Birmingham is a perfect example, for those of you who don't know it crampons and ropes are optional, but any vertigo-inducing bank will do as long as the grass is knee high.
This discipline is best repeated in three sets of ten repetitions or until you've lost your scrum half in the undergrowth.

5. Beach Rugby
Tired of all this sprint training? Forgotten what a ball looks like? Time to get back to the sport we love.
In an effort to recreate the leg sapping, mud-wallowing conditions of deepest December those clubs fortunate enough to be by the coast spend the evening by the seaside.
Sounds like a doss doesn't it? Strolling around playing a bit of touch with your mates. That won't do. It's got to be full pace and full contact and makes lineout jumping in the sand pretty interesting.
Best done within eyeshot of a promenade pub whose signs blink teasingly. The game finishes when the tide laps around the 6ft 8ins lock's waist or aforementioned scrum half can no longer be seen.
It is absolutely compulsory that each player consumes a genuine sand-wich.