After the injury issues surrounding the Gold Coast SUNS in 2015, you’d hardly expect there to be a clean bill of health turning the page on this calendar year.
 
Six weeks into the 2016 pre-season and there’s reason to be optimistic, with just three players still on concentrated rehabilitation programs.
 
“They’re progressing very well,” coach Rodney Eade told SUNS TV on Monday.
 
“To encapsulate the whole group, at the start of training we do our warm-up and then we go into our first skill drill. Today we had 40-odd players involved in that so that’s a really good sign that it (rehab group) is shrinking all the time.”
 
New Elite Performance Director, Justin Cordy, arrived at Metricon Stadium with plenty of fanfare and several new faces as he shaped his own high performance team to oversee the SUNS’ fitness program.
 
Although his regime is still in its infancy, Cordy’s appointment appears an early masterstroke, introducing individualised programs that have the players energised at the beginning of a long and brutal pre-season campaign.
 
Eade believes Cordy brings several areas of enhancement to the club that should translate to on-field improvement in 2016.
 
“A few areas (of improvement). One is knowledgebase and his ability to be able to educate players about the science behind what they’re doing,” he said.
 
“Also the staff he’s brought with him are fantastic in weights and the rehab and then making individual programs so he’s made it specific to their needs so the specificity around their particular weaknesses, but also maximise their strengths and also the positions they play.”
 
“So it’s really been that individualised program that’s been working well.”