Dunfermline manager Jim McIntyre is not ashamed to admit that his pre-season philosophy has a dose of old school “evil necessity” about it.
The Pars boss is a subscriber to the advances of cutting edge sports science, but he still believes there is a place for the lung-bursting long run in the sun that football players dread.
The SPL new boys were put through one of those at Pitreavie, and McIntyre feels there’s no substitute for it.
He said, “Pre-season is an evil necessity when you’ve got to put the work in. A lot of the modern techniques are all about the ball, but I’m a great believer that there have to be a few character runs in there as well.
“They’re runs that I did as a player under a lot of managers I worked for during my own career.
“There’s stuff in our pre-season programme that I took from the likes of Alex MacDonald, Tommy Burns and Alex Smith. Then you marry them with your own ideas.
“We like the short, sharp runs but it’s important that they do the tough runs as well. I know that they work.
“It’s not about going crazy at this stage though. Yes, we work them hard, but it’s important you have the right recovery time. The ball has been out a few times as well.”AustriaDunfermline will head for a training camp in Austria in a fortnight. They will be based at Obertraun between July 10 and 15, and it’s expected that they’ll play two friendlies against teams from Germany.
McIntyre said, “It will be good to get the boys away together and make use of top training facilities.
“Plus, we’ll have two games as well. I think it will be a couple of German sides, but that’s not been confirmed yet.
“There will be no problem fixing up matches because a lot of sides are out there at that time.”
They will have the best of facilities for their week-long stay, but he knows that isn’t the be all and end all for a successful pre-season.
He said, “In my first year here as manager the club backed us to the hilt and spent a lot of money on a trip. But we didn’t do anything in terms of winning the league.
“Last year we didn’t have a goalkeeping coach or a sports scientist, and we didn’t go anywhere in pre-season.
“All we had was a day out in Edinburgh when we were paintballing to give the boys a break between a lot of hard sessions. And of course last year we won the league. So you have to put these things into perspective.”
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The goalkeeping coach and sports scientist posts have been filled in the last couple of weeks, which has pleased McIntyre greatly.
He stated, “We knew we had to bring in people for those roles. It takes a bit of work off myself. When you’re a manager in the SPL there’s more commitments.
“It was important that we had people in place that would allow myself and Gerry to do our coaching on the park and me to meet my other responsibilities off the park.
“I’m delighted that we’ve got Jim Preston former Falkirk goalkeeping coach and Ross Hughes from Hamilton.
“Both are here on a part-time basis, but that’s plenty. We’ll get what we need out of that. I’m grateful to the board for backing me on that.”
Meanwhile, McIntyre had nothing to report as far as a new right-back is concerned.
He said, “I’m still speaking to clubs but if the right person doesn’t come along we’ll just wait. I’m not going to take anybody who I don’t think will add to the strength of our squad.”