[Crans-Montana. The first session.]
We came out of the tunnel into the thin bright air and the mountain hit them in the lungs before I'd said a word.
You could see it land.
Twenty-three men jogging out onto a pitch at fifteen hundred metres, and somewhere around the second lap the easy chatter thinned and a couple of them went quiet and one of the younger lads put his hands on his hips on a warm-up jog, which you do not do on a warm-up jog at sea level.
The altitude was the first coach on the staff. It tells the truth about a man's summer before you've blown a whistle. Who came back from the season in shape and who came back from a beach.
Bray clocked it beside me. "Three of them are in trouble already and we've not started."
"Good," I said. "I want to know which three."
Marcus had a tablet out on the touchline, not filming for once, coding live, every drill, every turnover, building the thing he'd build all fortnight.
