Wigan Warriors first team stars enjoy training session with UFC heavyweight Tom Aspinall

The Atherton-born fighter has been using the facilities at Robin Park Arena in the last few months, and was joined by Morgan Smithies and Cade Cust for a recent session.

As well as learning some new wrestling techniques, the Wigan pair, along with assistant coach Sean O’Loughlin, were also on hand to demonstrate snippets of what they do to the mixed martial arts heavyweight and his team.

“I really enjoy it down here,” said Apsinall.

“We don’t often see the players, but we’re in the cage every week- it’s an amazing facility so I really appreciate them letting me use it.

“It was good training with the players. They’re big strong athletic lads.

“They know basic body positioning, and how to turn people over.

“I wanted to have a go at getting the ball and running into them to see how the impact felt.

“I’m a lot bigger than the lads who were in there, and I was surprised by how strong they are.

“I thought I’d be able to get past them, but I was sadly mistaken.

“You look at rugby and you look at MMA, and you’d think it was quite similar.

“It’s guys grappling each other and going down.

“There are similar energy systems, but when it comes to the little finer details, it’s way different.

“They only get a limited time of getting hold of someone and turning them over before the ref makes them get up.

“We know how to pin someone for long durations, while they do it for a few seconds before they get up and go.

“I really enjoyed the stuff they were telling us about when two people go into a tackle and how they stop the opposition from passing it- it was really interesting.

“I think they got some small things out of us.

“I’ve always said I’d like to test myself in one game of rugby, but me and running aren’t really friends, so it’d be interesting to see how my body would hold up.

“I reckon I would have a good 10 minutes in me.”

Warriors legend O’Loughlin believes it’s good for the club to work with different people to allow them to pick up new ideas.

“It’s good for the lads to get in with Tom so we can transfer a bit of knowledge,” he stated.

“It’s good to have an athlete like that in the gym and seeing how they go, and if we can get any advice or any little detail, then it’s good for our game as well.

“Wrestling and grappling is second nature to them.

“You can feel the difference in technique with how tight and strong they are in that position.

“When you get on the floor with them guys, there’s nothing you can do- you’re in their world.

“It’s quite humbling to see how good they are in those areas.

“On the flip side, with the ball in hand, it’s a very different story, and our lads were at home with that kind of stuff.

“It’s good to see how good our boys are, and how brutal our sport actually is, because we’ve got a lot of top athletes in our game, which should be celebrated.”

With Aspinall set to face Marcin Tybura in his next fight at UFC London on July 22, O’Loughlin states it’s important to show support for anyone from the local area- no matter what sport they are competing in.

“We’ve got a great venue here at Robin Park that’s good for the whole town,” he added.

“Whenever you get wind of someone in the local area doing well in a sport, you’re willing them to do well.

“I’m not well up on the ins and outs of UFC, you know there’s a lot of things being said about Tom and how potentially good he can be.

“It’s great to see him progress, and that’s the same with all local talent, you’re always flying the flag for them.”

The two Wigan players involved in the session both enjoyed learning new things from Aspinall and his team.

“It was different,” Smithies said.

“In terms of wrestling, we do quite a bit of that with Lockers (Sean O’Loughlin), but it was good to get the experience of doing it with better wrestlers and learning new techniques.

“We do similar stuff, but they do things more efficiently, so we’ve picked up quite a bit- it was pretty interesting.

“Being more wrestling based, they didn’t really understand the first contact in rugby too much, but once we taught them, they were good at it.

“We didn’t do too much on the pads- thank god, it would’ve looked a bit embarrassing.”

“They’re much bigger boys,” Cust added.

“There were a few heavyweights there; we don’t get that size in Super League.

“They were going a bit easy on me, but it was good fun.

“It was good to learn a bit more about wrestling, and we got to teach them a little bit about rugby.

“I hope they enjoyed it as much as we did.

“I wish Tom good luck in his fight coming up, I’m sure there’ll be plenty of us watching.”

The Warriors are back in action on Sunday afternoon when they take on Salford Red Devils at the AJ Bell Stadium (K.O. 3pm).