Hibs sports scientist offers fitness update on quartet and makes contact training warning

Hibs Ryan Porteous and Stephen Mallan have returned to full training. Pic: SNS Group Alan Rennie

Hibs have received a pre-season boost with the news that Ryan Porteous and Stevie Mallan have returned to full training.

The pair returned to the fold for the first time since January as Jack Ross’s squad reported back to the club’s East Mains training centre on Monday to kick off preparations for the new campaign.

Defender Porteous required surgery after damaging knee ligaments in a Scottish Cup tie at Tannadice, while Mallan also went under the knife to resolve an ongoing knee issue.

In a further boost, Joe Newell is set to join the group in a week's time while Sean Mackie is likely to return to full training before the start of new Premiership season in August.

The update came via the club's head of sports science and medicine, Nathan Ring, who offered an insight into the players' first week back.

"Since we have returned to HTC every player has been able to get back on the grass and have the ball at their feet, which is a big positive for them all individually and also for Jack and John (Potter) in terms of training numbers and being able to assess the condition they have come back in," he said.

"Certainly, on the evidence of what we have seen in the first week certain players have followed the lockdown training plan better than others. The main training stimulus that the players have lacked over this period is the shorter, sharper movement associated with football - change of direction, reaction based and ball drills.

"Many of the players have commented how strange it felt to back training with the ball again, which didn’t involve hitting it against the wall! Jack has been mindful that we need to build up training progressively and not overload the players in the initial phases, giving consideration that we have had almost 14 weeks away from football.

"As we are seeing in other leagues that have returned to competitive match-play, the incident of injury appears to be higher following lockdown."

Ring also warned that players are in danger of not being physically ready for the proposed August 1 start of the new Scottish Premiership season unless contact training is introduced soon.

"Training has followed a similar pattern most days starting with prehabilitation drills, into a pitch-based warm-up and pitch-based conditioning work and passing drills," he added. "All these drills need to be unopposed, meaning players cannot challenge for the ball, tackle and so on. Clubs are waiting for the green light to return to contact training at present.

"In order for us to prepare players for friendly matches we feel we need at least two weeks of contact training to prepare safely and reduce risk of injury with at least two weeks of friendly fixtures prior to starting any competitive matches.

"So we are walking a tight timeline to be ready for August 1 without putting the players at unnecessary increased risk of injury."