"All the lads have come back fit and sharp, and ready to go," says McGrath ahead of start of pre-season
Halifax boss John McGrath says his players are fit, sharp and ready to go as they return for pre-season training.
Town start their pre-season programme on Monday, with a full week's work before their first warm-up match at home to Championship side Sheffield United on Saturday.
The squad gathered for a testing day at Huddersfield University earlier this week, which McGrath says went well.
"Really good, we had the lads in on Thursday and they did a testing session to see where they boys are in terms of fitness," he told the Courier.
"The boys will be re-tested again around December, January time so we get a good marker then.
"But all the lads have come back fit and sharp, and ready to go."
On the start of pre-season training on Monday, McGrath said: "We're just building, we're going to build towards August 8 when the season starts, but I've always said I don't expect August 8 results on June 29.
"What I do expect is a group of players to stick together and go on a journey with us for the next ten months.
"Everybody there wants to win games of football and it starts on Monday."
McGrath says he wants to get a strong base level of fitness level into his squad.
"It's always tough, pre-season's pre-season for a reason," he said.
"I tend to do a lot of it with the football, so we do a lot of technical stuff with running involved, but the lads have to get the miles in their legs, get used to getting their bodies ready.
"They had a long season, they've had six weeks off, which has been brilliant for them, but they now need to be put through their paces again."
McGrath's predecessor Adam Lakeland put a strong emphasis on building togetherness among his squad by ensuring they spent as much time together as possible at training, including eating breakfast and lunch there.
And the Town manager says he is of the same mindset.
"That's massive for me as well, I want the boys to spend as much time as they can in the common recreation area at the training ground.
"We all train together, we'll do team bonding sessions during pre-season where we'll come away from the training ground and do a bit of team bonding elsewhere, there'll be team nights out, lads will go bowling, play darts.
"We'll organise a really good, varied pre-season for the boys."
McGrath says he will use the Sheffield United game to field a different team in each half.
"We'll have four days of training under our belts, and then you're straight into playing Sheffield United," he said.
"It's going to be used as two 45 minutes, lads getting 45 minutes under their belts and easing them into the game."
The Town manager says he is excited to finally be getting to work.
"It was exciting getting announced, it was exciting getting the job and it's still exciting planning and putting the squad together," he added.
"I really enjoyed yesterday with the boys, meeting them for the first time.
"I had a couple of minutes with each player for a managerial meeting in-between the testing and we got on great.
"The interactions with the players, the boots on the grass days, they're what we live for as coaches and players."