George North: The best part of our Polish adventure is when it's over

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On average in our Polish training camp we backs put on 5kg of lean muscle and lost four per cent of our body fat.

It meant we were allowed to eat whatever we wanted when we got home. The forwards have to be more careful! We got back on Friday and spent two days completely resting.

Boy, did we need it. I chilled with friends and family and just ate the whole weekend. It was nice to get some real food.

Putting the work in: George North tries to get past Lloyd Williams during training

When all life’s luxuries are taken away it’s the simple pleasures that keep you happy. You look forward to a protein bar with a line of peanut butter in it, and cracking your back out in the morning on a foam bar.

You don’t normally do five days that hard without a rest but we achieved what we set out to achieve and I feel like we’ve already been together for months. It’s not fun but you’re out there to do a job and you get that done.

My Poland highlight is always the last day. After the agony of the whole week, waking up every morning with your whole body hurting, at the end of it all you wake up with your bag half-packed and you know you’re going home.

It’s the utter relief when the final whistle goes at the end of the final session. We’ve got a cryotherapy coming to Wales — so the one good thing is we won’t have to return to Poland, although I bet we’ll still be sent to some deepest, darkest country.

Making a splash: George North during an early morning swimming session in Poland

Icrashed out on the bus to Warsaw, peaked in the airport after a coffee which always gets me bouncing, then as soon as I put on my headphones on the plane I was gone. I woke up in Heathrow, then fell asleep again on the bus to Cardiff!

There are only a couple of restaurants in Spala and one does the world’s biggest pizzas. On our afternoon off, five of us backs managed to finish three of them off between us.

I didn’t have any money so I went to the cashpoint beforehand and took out 100 zlotys, which is about 45 pounds. It turns out that’s the equivalent of about half a million in Poland — the pizzas only cost about four pounds! The pizza place was the  pick-me-up stop. It was phenomenal — you could even get Coke out the bottle.

When you’re new to the team you set yourself personal goals, but I think now it’s more of a team thing. The personal targets go into the background, now we have to stake a claim. We have to beat these teams at home.

Working hard: George North during weights training as he looks to put muscle on his body

Argentina are no pushovers at the start of four massive games. I’ve been chatting a bit with my Argentinian team-mate at Scarlets, Tomas Vallejos (below), and he says the Pumas feel like they are a better side for facing New Zealand, South Africa and Australia in the Rugby Championship.

It’s a massively tough tournament that only benefits them just by being in it. They had close games at Mendoza, in front of sell-out crowds, which gives them confidence.

Tavis Knoyle is what we call in Wales an absolute beauty. He’s come in at scrum-half and he’s a very positive chap. He works so hard and he’s been in great form for the Scarlets.

It’s been a long road for him to get here, missing the World Cup because of an operation, but you should have seen the smile on his face when he found out he’d got picked. Two half backs from the same team could be good for us too — they know each other inside out.

In the cold: George North comes out of the cryotherapy chamber

Players have qualms about how many games we are playing in a season. It’s a double-edged sword because games bring the funding, but I think as players we felt it was five or six games too many last season. Mentally we wanted it in Australia but physically we were let down.

The Australia tour was at the end of a big old block of work for us. I had five weeks off afterwards, which was beautiful — and needed. I came home and didn’t lift a dumbbell for three weeks.

Argentina come here in good form and are a very physical side in both forwards and backs. The backs run hard and they love an aerial battle, which is something we’ve worked on.  If they started kicking a lot I’ll just have to keep running backwards and forwards to cover the ground, which is always fun

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