Carlisle United Football Club

Shaun Brisley on settling in and playing games

We spoke to defender Shaun Brisley about settling in at his new club and getting minutes under his belt ahead of the Wednesday morning training session.

"I'm settling in really well," he told us. "We've got a good group of lads here. I'm enjoying training and everything about the club.

"I obviously missed the first week or so of pre-season so I had a bit of catching up to do. I think it was a good decision to not throw me straight into the games without having much training under my belt after the summer break. I think I've benefitted from doing a bit of extra work with Lee Fearn and I feel good.

"Like all players these days I did keep myself fit over the summer and I did what I could, but it's easier to do the work with the lads than it is on your own. I've had a couple of 45 minute run-outs now which have dusted the cobwebs off."

"I enjoyed getting out there last week and we had a few fans come down to Warrington, which was nice, because it isn't a local game," he continued. "It's been good to play with the rest of the lads and from the first few games I've seen we've looked to get the ball down and pass it round. We kept possession of the ball really well against Warrington and I thought we used it just as well."

On the pre-season mini-break, which the manager gave the first team lads last week, he said: "Even though the rest of the lads had a mini-break I was still working to try and make sure I'm fully up to speed as quickly as possible.

"I did manage to get a couple of days off which gave me a good chance to recharge the batteries and get ready to go again. We're now all focussing our minds on the first game of the season against Portsmouth.

"The first few games of pre-season were all about getting the minutes into your legs. You obviously want to win every game and the teams we'll play in the next couple of weeks will offer us a tough test, which we're all looking forward to."