Kruise Leeming’s View From The Pitch: How I got to chat with England manager Gareth Southgate

I drove over to Manchester for it after training with Leeds and the whole squad met in a hotel.

It was good to have a change of scenery and meet up with some old friends.

I spoke to Shaun Wane, the England coach and we looked at some footage and talked about my game, what I am doing well and what I need to improve on.

Gareth Southgate was excellent and it was good to hear the England football manager’s perspective on things.

He spoke about his role and why he is patriotic towards England and his history in the World Cup, playing for England and how he was brought up.

It was nice to hear from him and I was really interested in what he said about the pressures he is under.

That’s relatable to what I am going through at Leeds at the minute and it was good to hear his take on the inside and outside pressure of performing on the biggest stage.

When you play a professional sport, whether it’s a relatively small one like ours or a huge, global game such as football, you all seem to go through similar experiences.

He lives in Harrogate and he is aware of how big rugby league is in the north.

I’m sure he wouldn’t mind me saying he is not an expert on our game, but he is a rugby league fan and has been to games at Headingley.

He said he has grown up watching rugby, he has always been into it and he appreciates what we put our bodies through and what we do on a day-to-day basis.