Orange Hawks’ 2016 player-coach Jason Gangaram banged on about it throughout last year’s Group 10 premier league season, particularly about how his side wasn’t up to scratch in that department, and it’s exactly what new mentor Willie Heta has focused on for the first month of preparation.

With a plethora of new faces on hand during the first four weeks of the 2017 pre-season Heta, who’s signed on for two years, has his troops busting their guts without the ball in a bid to make sure lack of fitness won’t be an issue this winter.

That’ll continue too, Heta said.

“It’s about more conditioning at the moment. There’s a few boys struggling with it, but hey, we all are at this time of year,” Heta laughed.

“We’ve had plenty of numbers, a lot of new faces so it’s all going really well … so we’ll keep working on the conditioning for the moment.

“The attitude has been really good. There’s been no complaining and certainly no boys running away, so we’ll see how that all pans out.”

Heta’s not wrong about the new faces in the two blues’ camp either.

Parkes Spacemen and Group 11 backrower Ethan McKellar’s clearance has been approved by Group 10, as has Jacob Sutherland’s. He returns to the two blues after a stint at the Blayney Bears.

Dubbo Westside hooker Kenny Knight has also been cleared to move to the two blues, as has former CSU Bathurst rake Joey Dunlop. Steve Lane looks set to move across from Orange CYMS and provide depth in the halves as well.

Hawks’ biggest signing outside Heta looks to come in the form of former Tongan and New Zealand Residents representative Sione Tongia.

Tongia, 29, has also played for the Auckland Vulcans in the Intrust Super Premiership NSW and the Central Queensland Capras in Queensland’s Intrust Super Cup as well.

Heta didn’t confirm or deny any signings when speaking with the Central Western Daily last week, he merely said he’s excited to see what the two blues can do this year in what he labelled somewhat of a “rebuilding phase”.

“Expectations aren’t too high at the moment,” Heta admitted, saying he’s preferring to focus on improvement to begin with above anything else.

“Like I said when I came here, I only want to help improve the club. I don’t want to be chasing any Hawks juniors out of the club or anything like that, it’s just about bringing in some players around those juniors.

“I’m in a new role at a new club, and everything’s falling into place footy wise.

“I’m excited to see what happens.”

There will be question marks as to whether Hawks’ recruits will cover for their losses this winter, with Sam Sotogi, Brodie Christopherson and 2016 skipper Max Wolfsen all reportedly leaving the club.

Christopherson’s loss looks likely to hurt Hawks the most, firstly because he was the club’s brightest halves prospect and secondly because it leaves Heta with a huge gap to fill in the No.7 jersey.