THE fundamentals of pre-season are about establishing fitness, formation and form, but the start of Burnley’s tour of the south west offered the players another reminder of what lies in store for them from August 6 onwards. Hours on the team bus.

The Championship may have lost QPR, Norwich and Swansea to the Premier League, but with West Ham coming down and Brighton, Peterborough and Southampton coming up there will still be plenty of travelling involved. And travel invariably means traffic jams.

With no friendlies planned for the weekend before the tour began, I took the opportunity to visit friends en route to Bath and Bristol.

A journey that should take four hours at most took five as a mixed bag of weather and no shortage of caravans took its toll on the motorways.

If soaring fuel costs have kept cars off the roads, there was no evidence of that on Sunday.

Tuesday was no different for the team either, seemingly.

A six-mile tailback on the M6 wasn’t the only difficulty the players encountered on their six-hour trek ahead of the third of six friendlies.

The performance and result weren’t up to the standard of the previous outings at Altrincham and Bury.

Manager Eddie Howe refused to blame a disappointing 2-0 defeat on the journey, but spending so long on a coach – even an executive one – can’t be good on the legs.

Perhaps the irony of a go-karting challenge on their day off yesterday wasn’t lost on the players in the circumstances.

After being put through their paces in the build-up to Tuesday’s game at Bristol Rovers they wound down with another day of outdoor activities, following last week’s trip to Simonstone’s ‘Outdoor Elements’.

Ideal for team bonding – another key ingredient of the pre-season programme.