STEVE Price says The Wire's pre-season training camp in Portugal will involved plenty of "long and hard days."

The squad left England yesterday to spend a week at Brown's Sports Resort in Vilamoura – the same place as they held last year's camp.

Marquee signing Gareth Widdop has not joined them as he remains at home to continue treatment on the ankle injury that will see him miss the start of the 2020 campaign.

Other than the England half-back, the entire squad has travelled and Price lifted the lid on what they will be going through on the Algarve.

The Wire head coach highlighted this week as particularly important for his international players in terms of getting up to speed having only returned to training on January 2.

"Portugal is very important, especially with the disruption we’ve had with the GB boys coming in late," he said.

"It makes me so proud when players from our club are picked for representative honours, but then you have to fast-track them to get them in sync with everything.

"It is what it is and we’ll certainly value our time in Portugal.

"There will be long and hard days but it will be a fun week.

"There’s a lot of double days. They are long, physical and mentally challenging.

"There’s certainly a lot of things going on. You still have to have a bit of fun too and we’ll be doing that.

"It’s great for getting the boys familiar with each other, especially the new players.

"It’s going to be a great week and we’ve got a lot of work in front of us."

The squad will return to England on Sunday ahead of Mike Cooper's testimonial match against Salford Red Devils on January 23.