Cronulla centre Jesse Ramien said a different pre-season which included an emphasis on running is already having a positive impact.
Under the watch of new high performance manager Nathan Pickworth, who was previously in a similar role at St George Illawarra, the Sharks have racked up the kilometres.
With the speed of matches increasing last year after the introduction of the six-again infringement rule, Ramien believes Cronulla will be well prepared. It s been different, we ve had a bit of a staff change. It s been a lot tougher, but I think it s been good, Ramien told NRL.com. Each head of performance has their own way to do things. Some like to reduce the load, some like to run more, some like to do more conditioning games. This year we ve been doing a lot of running.
Players to watch
Toby Rudolf
One of the Fantasy success stories of 2020, Rudolf started the season as a $228k rookie and lifted his value by more than $300k by the end of the year with an average of 40 points per game.
The middle forward scored well regardless of whether he started the game or came off the bench, and there s good reason to expect further improvement this season.
For one thing, he s now got a year of NRL experience under his belt and has shown he can rack up 50 points in base stats on his day, and for another, he looms as an increasingly vital member of a Sharks pack that features experienced but ageing big men like Aaron Woods, Andrew Fifita and Aiden Tolman.