\n This year\u2019s League One champions are preparing to compete in the new-look Championship and Dean Muir\u2019s side have organised three pre-season friendlies to get themselves ready.\n<\/p>\n
\n The first of these takes place at Colwyn Bay\u2019s Stadiwm CSM on Sunday and Crusaders\u2019 opponents will be Swinton Lions.\n<\/p>\n
\n Muir was appointed head coach in October following the departure of Carl Forster from the role and he has wasted no time in securing additions to the title-winning squad, which has hit the ground running with pre-season training.\n<\/p>\n
\n Muir said: \u201cThe boys are really enthusiastic and they are buying into what we want.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe talk and communication is definitely there. The togetherness, tightness is evident to see and I thought our skill has been, overall, good.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Crusaders warmed up for their pre-season tests with an opposed training session alongside Oldham.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt was good,\u201d stressed Muir. \u201cI was pleased (with) what I saw. The lads really enjoyed it and it was designed to put the team under a bit of pressure, practice in-game scenarios and look at different combinations.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n North Wales Crusaders and Swinton Lions were familiar rivals in League One last season and the match-up will allow the teams to dust off any cobwebs.\n<\/p>\n
\n It\u2019s a hectic festive spell for Muir\u2019s Crusaders, who are heading north to tackle Barrow on December 28.\n<\/p>\n
\n Then, North Wales will be returning to Colwyn Bay for a high-profile match-up with Super League giants Wigan Warriors on January 10. It has been announced that this big match-up will be an all-ticket affair.\n<\/p>\n
\n This will be the final pre-season friendly for Crusaders and the competitive campaign will get underway at home to either Bedford Tigers or Medway Dragons in the Challenge Cup on the weekend of January 24-25.\n<\/p>\n
\n North Wales will then open their Championship tilt away to Widnes Vikings in early February.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This year\u2019s League One champions are preparing to compete in the new-look Championship and Dean Muir\u2019s side have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5010],"tags":[748,4884,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-644652","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wales","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115753172627398928","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}