Canterbury Rugby Club are to embark on a summer fitness programme in a bid to hit the ground running next season.

Matt Corker’s men finished 10th in National 2 East and will be looking to improve on that in the 2023/24 campaign.

Fitness is one area that’s been identified as requiring work if they are to climb the table.

“Tenth place is not where want to be as a club - everyone’s aware of that,” said head coach Corker.

“We represent a proud club with a proud history and we want to be at the other end of the table.

“We’ve had a good review of the season that came up with some really good stuff.

“The lads gave some great feedback.

“We’re positive with the direction we’re going in what the lads feel will be a big year for us.

“We’ve made some commitments around the off-season and pre-season to be as fit as possible.

“If we’re honest with ourselves, we weren’t as fit as we could have been this season.

“The season we got promoted it was something we really focused on.

“It’s not that we ever stopped doing that, I just think maybe we adjusted pre-season where it was only the second one back from Covid.

“This year, we’ll be going for it from day one.

“One of the fantastic things is we’ve had our own gym built and we’re encouraging the boys to make use of that.”

Only the bottom three sides conceded more than Canterbury’s 798 points and that’s another area the side will be looking to improve.

Corker said: “We felt our attack moved on a great deal; if anything, we let ourselves down in defence.

“That was something that came out before Christmas.

“If we’re honest, as a group, we get excited about attacking, but it’s your defence that wins championships and we need to shine a light on that a bit more.

“We’ve nominated leaders to champion that part of the game.

“We conceded too many tries through lapses in concentration and not communicating as well as we could do.

“It’s good to do these reviews because it helps identify where your strengths are and where you need to improve.

“Our target for next season is something we’ll talk about in pre-season but we certainly want to climb the table.

“The way we do that is by fulfilling our potential. If we can hit our goals, that will reflect in the table.”