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McKenna: Training a Challenge to Say the Least - Ipswich Town News

Town boss Kieran McKenna admits training during Storm Eunice was a challenge and says the effects of the wind comes into his thoughts when preparing for matches in League One in general, not just tomorrow’s visit by Burton Albion.

Quizzed on this morning’s training session, McKenna said: "It was a big challenge. We had to do the large majority of our work inside. We’re lucky here to have a good inside area, so we managed to do most of our preparation in the classroom and inside on an artificial pitch.

"We went outside for a very short bit of the session just to get the players moving and some fresh air.

"It was a challenge to say the least but thankfully everyone came through it safe and well and they’re ready for the game on Saturday.”

Does the potential for strong winds come into his preparations for a game? "It can a little bit. That’s something that I’m still adapting to because at Premier League grounds it was never really too much of an issue.

"I can’t think of many games over the years that I’ve been involved in that level that were really affected by the wind.

"Obviously, with the bowl shape of most of the stadiums and the fact that they are a little bit higher and a little bit more protected, it never really felt like it was a big issue or anything that affected the game too much in games that I’ve been involved with.

"I think at this level, the conditions do have more of an impact, the pitch quality can vary considerably from game-to-game and certain grounds are more exposed to the wind than others.

"So that’s something that I’ve learned in the first couple of months, something that we’re looking into more, getting really detailed reports as early as we can in the week in terms of the weather conditions and the pitch conditions and things like that.

"I think whatever conditions we play in, we’ll want to have certain principles that we stick to, but we also need to be adaptable enough that we are able to play in the conditions better than the opposition are.”


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