Glamorgan players returned to pre-season training this week, with those players who aren't away playing club cricket overseas this winter, back at the SWALEC Stadium after their Christmas break.
Glamorgan's new Head Coach Toby Radford, said: I started doing one-to-one coaching sessions with the top order batters who are in the country at the moment, from pretty much the moment I started back in November, which was a fair bit earlier than they had done in previous years.
Robert Croft has been working with the spinners and Steve Watkin with the seam bowlers as well so we've spread some of the work out and I think up until Christmas we had done 200 hours of one-to-one coaching, which is a good effort, plenty of quality coaching time and purposeful too.
For instance, with the batters we've been doing long sessions, as in Championship cricket we know it's about walking out to bat for several hours to build a score, so it's important to practice with that in mind and also physically prepare to do that.
We've also been heavy on the fitness side during pre-season too, then the players had two weeks off, so we started back this week, similarly again in one-to-one sessions and fitness testing. Then today we've come together in a big group session for the first time, doing a bit of fielding for the first time this winter, throwing catching diving and group nets so we've had batters facing bowlers for the first time.
The players will continue training into the Spring developing their skills and fitness, with a series of warm-up games to be announced in late March, before the new season gets underway on April 1.
Although some of the players have been away playing overseas or in the case of Mike Reed, who has been spending time with the ECB at Loughborough, there has been a welcome return to training for Huw Waters, who was spotted in training as he continues his return to fitness after missing the 2013 season with symptoms that proved tricky to diagnose.
With no overseas tour planned this Spring, Glamorgan will again install a marquee over the outdoor nets to re-create the early season conditions the players are likely to face when matches start on grass in the Spring.
Toby Radford is keen for the new season to start and is pleased with the progress of preparations for the new campaign, I would love to reach another final in a one-day tournament or to win a trophy, but promotion in the Championship has got to be key. We must look to get into the First Division. This is a big club, with large support base, playing in a Test Match venue, and we should be in the First Division with big name players here.
Without doubt there is the quality here. Michael Hogan is a top class bowler, Jacques Rudolph is an international quality batsman, Jim Allenby has been exceptional particularly last year, Murray Goodwin has scored runs wherever he has played for the last twenty years and we've got good young players coming through which is exciting.
You want that mix of young and old, but the young ones are the future to take the club forward. I'm positive about what I have seen so far, the attitude and work rate of the players is very good and we have to turn that into performances on grass.