Third diary entry from inside the Warrington Wolves camp

FIRSTLY, an apology…

Earlier today, Matt Davis collared me and told me I was “on notice” for detailing his table tennis defeat to Steve Price in yesterday’s diary entry.

Now I know he reads these diaries (and why wouldn’t you?), I will tell him how sorry I am, but if anything I hope he is happy he is in the same brotherhood as me – the ‘beaten by Pricey at ping pong’ brotherhood!

Anyway, back to today and it followed a remarkably similar path to yesterday.

7.15am start, bacon and eggs then onto the field. Sound familiar?

> Check out two more diaries - Day 1 and Day 2

The schedule was due to be vaguely the same as Thursday – a morning field session followed by weights in the afternoon – but the content differed in plenty of ways.

After a quick warm-up, the group split with the edge players heading off with Lee Briers to work on some sliding defence.

> Photo gallery of Wire's training camp in Vilamoura

The four-man edge unit was made to stand with their backs to play and once they were allowed to turn round, the attack was already in full flow.

Obviously, this promotes thinking on your feet and teamwork in order to stop the attackers getting through and it was an interesting one to observe.

On the other side of the field, the forwards were working on plays tighter to the ruck.

> Update on injuries: Murdoch-Masila, Currie, Johnson

It is clear that this year, The Wire will be placing a lot more emphasis on the ball-handling skills of their forwards in order to unleash the edge players.

It’s something we saw a bit of last year, but again it was fascinating to see it up close and personal.

Then came a 13 v 13 scrimmage session – basically a run-through of several matchday scenarios.

Everything was covered and Steve made sure the new shot clock was enforced for scums, drop-outs etc.

The club have brought a drone with them to Portugal – a regular feature in their training sessions, and it flew overhead to record what went on so it could be reviewed in the team meeting later on in the day.

A few of the guys then went off to do some tackle bag work, so I wandered over with my camera to take some pictures.

As you’ll know from viewing some of our match action pictures, going into contact can often result in some questionable facials.

I did get a few belters. I showed them to the lads concerned and asked them if they’d like them for their Instagram pages. Unsurprisingly, there wasn’t a great deal of interest!

Today was a busy one for interviews as I caught up with Pricey, Ben Currie, Kev Brown and Blake Austin, so I was only able to pop into the weights session for a little while as I was busy collating all the content for our lovely readers.

And so to dinner (pasta again, goodbye beach body!) and an unexpected eye-opener.

I finished my meal and one of the hotel staff took my plate, leading to me thanking her in English without thinking.

Sitaleki Akauola was sat next to me and taught me how to say thank you in Portuguese. Certainly not a lesson I was anticipating, but thanks Sita nonetheless.

Shortly after this, Bennie Westwood wandered over to the restaurant’s coffee machine and was immediately inundated with orders from teammates and staff.

He carried them back two at a time but had enough within him to prank Adam from the club’s media team.

He wandered over to him and dropped a cup onto his lap, prompting Adam to jump out of his skin…before realising the cup was empty all along.

It had the table in stitches, and I think Sita and Ben Murdoch-Masila were still laughing about it as they went into team meeting.

That was the cue for me to head back to “The Media Hub” (aka mine and Adam’s digs) to finish typing up and get an early night.

I head back to England tomorrow afternoon, so I will have just enough time to cover some of the morning session before packing up and heading back to Faro airport to catch the flight home.

Until then, it’s over and out!