Hayden Ballantyne says he can see Fremantle’s pre-season focus on cleaner ball use starting to bear fruit.
Freo showed signs of improvement across the board throughout the 2018 pre-season and Ballantyne hopes this will continue when the home and away season commences against Port Adelaide on 24 March.
“(Cleaner ball use) has been a huge focus,” said Ballantyne during a school visit to Kolbe Catholic College in Rockingham.
“We probably do 15 to 20 minutes every day of pure ball handling skills and, as you saw on the weekend, it’s really paying off with our touch and one-touch pickups and stuff like that.
“It’s been a focus all pre-season and it’s clearly making a difference and improvement in our touch.”
Ballantyne’s form has improved markedly after a slow start to the pre-season, emerging as one of Freo’s best on ground after kicking 3.3 against West Coast at HBF Arena on Sunday.
“That’s what preseason games are for, get all the rust out and fine tune your game and I think that’s what I’ve done,” Ballantyne said.
“I went to Adelaide and played probably three quarters of that game, half a game in the first West Coast (scratch match) and a full game this weekend.
“I think building into the pre-season is what it’s all about. I’ve had injuries during pre-season games and I didn’t want to do that again.
“I’ve slowly built in and I think I was 'cherry ripe' going into last week's game and into round one.”
The 30-year-old says being fully fit for a summer makes his 2018 pre-season one of his most successful.
“I’m confident going in knowing I’ve done the biggest pre-season I’ve had,” Ballantyne said.
“I’ve done 90 per cent of it and got through it quite well and I’ve been building through the games.
“It was good to get up to Joondalup and get a full game in and get a few goals on the board which was nice.”
