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Leeds Carnegie: I’ve got it right this time - Pendlebury
FIGHTING FIT: Leeds Carnegie lock Jon Pendlebury.
The final three matches of the regular Championship season might represent the sparring ahead of the main event of play-off business for Leeds Carnegie, but try telling that to Jon Pendlebury.
After a season from hell, badly affected by illness and then injury, the big lock is finally punching his weight again, with the sight of him returning to the fray as a late replacement in the 21-17 home win over Bedford Blues on January 29 a welcome one.
Laid low by a debilitating autumnal virus, which saw him shed around two stone, Pendlebury had it rough in the first half of the campaign, with his previous appearance before his late cameo against Bedford coming in the X-rated 52-10 televised loss at Cornish Pirates on September 24.
After recovering from his ailments, the former Rotherham and Gloucester man fully concentrated on getting back in the first team, only to suffer a pre-Christmas setback playing for Carnegie’s A team.
Pendlebury learned lessons the hard way, that in competitive rugby nothing less than 100 per cent pristine condition equates to being ready and it’s a mistake that the Yorkshireman says won’t happen again.
Pendlebury, hoping for some much-needed game time in the forthcoming matches against Nottingham, Esher and London Welsh, said: “I feel ready now. It has taken a while for me to get where I need to be.
“I’ve done it the right way this time and got a lot more training under my belt, instead of trying to rush back.
“Just before Christmas, there were two A-team games and if I’d come through those I might have had a chance of being involved with the first team again (earlier). But hindsight is brilliant, isn’t it!
“It would have been great to push on to the first team. But through me wanting to play and thinking I was ready, I now know that I wasn’t.”
The line-out exponent, who penned a new two-year deal at Carnegie last summer, added: “I’ve been training with the lads fully for the past three weeks and I have been building up my contact work.
“Weight-wise, I’m back to where I need to be and I’ve got the conditioning work in, such as wrestling and tackling and all the contact work.
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“My fitness is where I need it to be; it’s just the match fitness that comes with playing games that I need.
“I only got 15 minutes against Bedford, but if I can get back involved this weekend against Nottingham that would be good. it was disappointing that the game got cancelled on Sunday.
“We’ve got three games left of the season now before the play-offs and hopefully, along with me, a few of the other boys who have been out long term will be coming back and making an impact going into the play-offs.
“I think Diccon (Edwards) might swap it around a little as some of the lads have played an awful lot of games and he might rest them completely or maybe put some on the bench.
“But he’ll be smart with that and will be talking to our conditioning staff so everyone is fit and well for the play-offs.
“Hopefully, us lads needing to play a bit more can get a bit of game time between now and then.”
Along with Pendlebury, the run-in to the play-offs represents a seminal moment in the seasons of other “old heads” who have been on the sidelines for large parts of 2011-12 thus far, in Scott Barrow and Lee Blackett.
Others, such as Lachlan MacKay, Mike MacDonald and Danny Paul, are looking towards the play-offs in terms of their next realistic involvement, with Pendlebury sparing a particular thought for Mackay, who hasn’t made a first-team appearance so far this term.
The Aussie centre, Carnegie’s headline signing of the 2010 close season, underwent major shoulder surgery twice in the second half of 2011, with Pendlebury claiming that he is paying the price for playing often when he wasn’t fully fit during Leeds’ grim battle against the drop last term.
Pendlebury said: “A few of the experienced players are coming back. Me and Scott have battled back into the team through playing and training well, while Mike took a knock on his hand and had to have surgery, otherwise he might have been involved as well.
“Lachlan MacKay is also training hard. at times last season people were asking him if he was fit and you always want to say you are so maybe he was sometimes playing when he should have had a rest.
“But he’s training his backside off to get back and it’s the same with Danny Paul.”
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