How have you assessed the new recruits’ first pre-season?

Our first-year players as a collective have a really good appetite to work and they have a degree of belief in themselves, but there’s no sense of entitlement. They’ve come in and have worked hard in the short period of time they’ve been here. Sean Hurley, Ed Langdon and Josh Deluca have all had some stress reactions where they’ve had to be backed off. Lachie Weller, Connor Blakely and Ethan Hughes have been able to do 80 per cent, which is what we limit our first-year players to for load management. At the minute, what is shining through is strong character, which we’re most pleased about.

How has Luke McPharlin trained in the pre-season?

On the whole, the entire group has done more work this pre-season, and Luke has done 80 per cent of the program, but he’s still done more work than he did last year. He’s run personal bests and is in great shape. What we’re going to do is let him go for the first half of the season and look to manage him in the second half.

The pre-season program has been changed, could we see alterations to your in-season routine?

The in-season will be the same; we think we’ve got a pretty good model. In-season throws up a number of Sunday games, a lot more than we had last year. Eight of those are Sunday to Sunday, so that just shifts what we do around a little bit, but the principles will stay the same.

What can fans expect from the tall forwards this season?

Michael Apeness, Matt Taberner, Jack Hannath and Jon Griffin have been playing up forward in the pre-season, and we’ve been trialling Aaron Sandilands through there. Taberner is going into his third year, Michael into his second. They have really trained on, they have more power through their body courtesy of the weight work they do with (sports science manager) Jason Weber. They are both growing with their understanding of how we want them to play. It’s challenging for young tall forwards. At the lesser levels they just let you play to your strengths, but AFL defenders tend to body you up more and move you. That’s why strength and understanding how to deal with that is important. But we’re excited for the near and long-term future with them. We don’t expect them to come out and kick 60 goals, but we certainly think they’re good, young emerging players.

How are the small forwards tracking?

You talk about Michael Walters, he only played eight games last year. He is in pretty good shape. He had a slight hamstring, but he’s been in full training. Hayden Ballantyne finished last season with a broken jaw. They’ve both had super summers and we expect them to be able to deliver again. Hayden Crozier really grew last year. He’s become a four-year player now and he needs to cement his spot. He took a spot last year and played in the finals. He came through as a 66kg kid, he’s 80kgs now and he’ll finish about 83 or 84kg, so he’s got more development in him.

Where is Zac Dawson at with his injury?

He’s had some challenges, in particular his groin area. We’ve been working to get on top of that. It’s a bit slower than we would of liked, but he’ll certainly play football this year. Who is most likely to play in defence if Zac Dawson can’t get up early in the season? Alex Pearce was going really well, we’ve got high hopes for him, but he had a stress reaction. He had one last year and he had another one this year. Alex Silvagni, Michael Johnson and Luke McPharlin are our tall defenders, and Chris Mayne has been going down there as well. And we know Garrick Ibbotson can play tall as well.

What changes can fans expect to see in the way you play this year?

We just want to spread the ball a bit more and try and keep our forwards at home a bit more. It’s still about the fundamentals; tactically competing is a great starting point and bringing great effort.

What’s the competition like for that second ruck spot behind Aaron Sandilands?

Aaron’s been a dominant player, but we’d like to use him forward a bit. Both Zac Clarke and Jon Griffin have had the number one spot when Aaron was out injured, so we’ve got real belief in those guys. They had some injury challenges last year; Zac with a posterior in the off-season and Jon Griffin was coming back from a knee reconstruction. He’s fit and firing now, so it’s going to be fierce for that spot.

The midfield has been settled in recent seasons, but could we see someone jump out and challenge for a spot?

We need that. Lachie Neale has immersed himself in there and Hayden Crozier will go through the wing more. Tommy Sheridan is the most obvious midfielder coming through. We think Nick Suban will continue to emerge. The group is established, David Mundy and Ryan Crowley are the older guys, and probably Tendai Mzungu, but he’s still young in AFL footy terms. Michael Barlow started a little bit later as a rookie. Then it’s quite young with Stephen Hill and Nat Fyfe. Clancee Pearce is still only 23 and Walters will go through there. We’d love to see Tommy Sheridan jump up. The maturity in Crozier and Sheridan has been fantastic. They’ve had great summers and Tommy has led the way with the running.


This article was first published in the April edition of Docker Magazine. Click here to view the full publication.