Bunch of poofs, we should employ Mick Crane as conditioner

I reamain unconvienced.

Fine by me mate, but when youve had Elite Performance Sports squads ranging from individual athletes to Olympic Squads numbering +300 in size, in every sport, and every discipline, for the best part of 60 years using these 'warm weather training camps'.......

..........i think there might be something in them!

Of course, if you have another scientificially proven piece of empirical evidence or a case study we can refer back to - then im all ears!

If you are doing ball work and learning new moves etc. you dont want to be doing it in driving rain on a boggy pitch. I don't think warm weather camps are crucial but they are useful for getting some good quality training done and it is a good morale booster for the players too.

I agree a dry envirnment with plenty of space is key for ball work but doesnt have to be abroad. Team spirit/team building is probably more effective in a challenging UK environment like an army camp than it would be overseas too imo.

It doesn't rain indoors.

Its a perk! And there is nothing wrong with perks, but lets call a spade a spade. Like you say, perks are often good for morale and thats not bad thing and I imagine what ExiledFromHull from said earlier about team building etc is also true, however it can all be achieved within the UK as well imo.

There is nothing in the game of Rugby League that can't be trained with the modern facilities already open to Hull FC players. And as I said before, the weather that you will be playing in at the start of the season is certainly not warm weather and there is no requirement for the player ever to get their skin damp anyway.

Oh, how I long for the days before "sports science" degrees became popular.

As I said earlier, name me one thing essenital to playing Rugby League that can't be done within the UK. I sure can't think of any and despite not been a trainer or having a degree in PE , I do know RL pretty well and have, debatably a bit of common sense as well.

I do know RL pretty well and have, debatably a bit of common sense as well.

and i know sport very well!

And having been on many many winter warm weather camps, i can vouch for them.
For example, i play hockey, and often we would fly to South Africa or Malaysia to train for 2 weeks, just after boxing day!

Those 2 weeks of uninterupted stick and ball training, the ability to complete numerous 10 x 400m sessions, the ability to know i personally could practise, perfect and hone a set of skills which would have been otherwise impossible in the howling wind and ice cold of Bisham Abbey or Lilleshall meant i arrived back full in the knowledge that if i had stayed in the UK or mainland Europe with the sqaud - we would have not have performed as well as we did in SA or Malaysia.

Also, the fact that we were training in heat and humidity would put our body under greater stresses, meaning our conditioning was far more improved when we arrived back!

So thats 2 weeks of uninterupted, near perfect conditions for techicanl skills.

Thats 2 weeks of undistracted focus away from other 'factors', meaning we focussed on why we were there!

2 weeks of physical training under far more testing conditions than 'Boothferry Hill' or 'Recca'

2 weeks of work making feel confident in my own abilities, as opposed to be slightly unsure.

And as you said in your post "As I said earlier, name me one thing essenital to playing Rugby League that can't be done within the UK."

.....no one is saying they cant be done in the UK, they are just done better and with more benefit when done in better conditions! And in a game where teams play till the 82nd minute, every small percentage factor is crucial. And if that percentage factor means your winger spends 2 weeks on the Algarve practising catching precision placed high kicks, as opposed to spending 2 weeks in Brantingham in the wet weather - then i know where i'd want my winger to train!

Oh, and as for running up Boothferry Hill - thats a pussy run! Done it many a time, get on the path behind lower school up towards Ttranby Croft - thats a proper training run!

Thats a fair post. As I say, I don't agree, fitness, team building, morale, skills can all be achieved perfectly well in the UK and too the same level imo and I have yet to hear anything that tells me other wise.

And as for jetting off to South Africa and Malaysia for two weeks! Well if that isn't a perk then I don't know what is! I'm thinking about taking up hockey.

As I say, I don't have any problem with warm weather training, I just don't believe that its neccesary and clearly neither does Hull FC if they have cancelled it.

I agree with exiled from Hull you can hone the technical skills better on grass outside in a natural environment in good weather conditions. They will get plenty of cold and wet weather training at Brantingham. The gym is good for strength conditioning but for kicking/tackling technique/moves you cant beat grass. By the way have you tried doing Spout Hill now thats a training run.

I am pretty sure we would have benefited for all the reasons mentioned above but not going is not the end of the world. Perhaps the decision really is based upon it being a potential disruption to pre-season and I do think the fact that we've had the Aussies here from the start in autumn/winter conditions probably reduces the need for such a "bonding" session..

Well Bal

I'd love to see you argue your case with every major sports team that does it!

Could Hull offer better sports facilities that say one of the AIS venues in Australia, or one of the major University's in America, or even Barcelona?

West London has some of the best sporting facilities in the world, but add into the equation that not all are together, some dont offer accomodation on site, some do but dont have rehab or conditioning fcailities, some dont offer suitable catering or even seminar rooms!

Name me one place in UK, that would allow such a camp, where the players would not have to worry about external factors?

For starters FC AFAIK went for 10 days not 2 weeks and I seem to remember the weather wasn't great in Portugal last year - didn't it rain most of the time? I suspect the club have weighed up the relative costs and benefits and decided that the additional benefit you get for the cost (which must be considerable) doesn't pay back. If the last 2 seasons are anything to go by there's plenty of evidence that there's no season-long benefit. IMO it sounds like there's a lot of downtime, boredom and general pi$$ing about when you get 30 odd young blokes together and they do about 5 hours training out of 24. The fact that there's an element of being a jolly to it is another reason not to go this year - we can hardly say the current squad have earned any sort of bonus week in the sun after what they offered us last season. I think per se that warm weather training is a good idea, but I'm hoping that our camp will be more of "hard yards" version this year.