Shane Flanagan says he is impressed with the way Josh Morris has already taken on a leadership role at Cronulla on his first day out on the training field.
The Sharks officially returned for pre-season training on Monday. But, out of Cronulla’s 2018 first team squad, only Jayden Brailey and Kurt Capewell are back at work with a host of the club’s senior players to return intermittently over the next few weeks after an arduous finals campaign and representative duty.
The Sharks took on a 1.2-kilometre time trial at Cronulla High School as they hit the field for the first time on Tuesday.
New signing Morris, a veteran of 263 first grade games with St George Illawarra and Canterbury, is likely to start the 2019 campaign in the centres after Cronulla lost Ricky Leutele and Jesse Ramien for next season.
Morris was the Dally M centre of the year in 2009 and 2012 and has played six times for Australia and 20 State of Origin matches for NSW.
It is that experience that could prove vital to Cronulla’s back line and Sharks coach Flanagan said Morris had already made a good first impression.
“It was really impressive. His first real day out on the field. He stood up and led those boys around. Over the next couple of weeks we’re going to slowly get some more experienced players back leading into December when they’re all back,” he said.
“It’s a really important role that Josh has got probably for the month of November and then obviously leading in, getting a feel for where he sits within the leadership group and within the playing group.
“So I was really impressed with the way he handled it today.”
Flanagan confirmed captain Paul Gallen would return to training on Friday after suffering a shoulder injury that ruled him out of the preliminary final defeat to Melbourne.
Co-captain Wade Graham, whose season ended thanks to a torn anterior cruciate ligament in the qualifying final loss to the Sydney Roosters, is back in the gym continuing his rehabilitation. Flanagan said the representative back-rower was excited to be back training and planned to be fit and ready to play as soon as his knee was right.
Capewell impressed in Tuesday’s time trial. The 25-year-old will be keen to impress in pre-season with a spot in the back-row up for grabs after the retirement of Luke Lewis.
“Kurt did really well. He came back two kilos heavier than he went away with. But he ran really well, he was the first over the line in the 1.2. A few of the boys that are away might come back and give him a bit of a challenge on his time,” Flanagan said.
“But overall I’m pretty happy with how they’ve turned up. We’re going to mix things up a little bit this year. While we’re happy with, in the end, how we finished in the competition we weren’t happy with how it ended. And we’ve got to change a few things. And we’ve got to challenge ourselves to get better in all areas.
“Our physical performance group are one of the best and they’re working really hard with the players. Now we’ve just got to get all the players to jump on board and have a really good pre-season and look forward to 2019.
“We’ve got to make sure every day our training is [strong]. While we think it’s a long time, six weeks before Christmas and six weeks after Christmas, if you have a bad training session or miss a beat, or come down with an illness or an injury you’re behind the eight ball straight away.
“So you need to make the most of every training session before Christmas if you’re going to have a crack at getting in the team for round one.
“It seems like a long time but there’s not a lot in it. We’ve started off on a pretty good note but [there is] a lot of work to be done.”
