Jayden Laverde is targeting a move into the Essendon midfield.

The 20 year old is preparing for his third AFL season and has spent the bulk of his 18 games playing across half forward.

But a move further up the ground is something he’d like to achieve in the coming years.

“That’s my goal for the future, so I’m happy playing up forward at the moment but eventually I want to strike myself as a midfielder,” Laverde said.

“I’m getting back into training now so I guess I’ll be spending most of my time as a forward, but eventually I want to get into that midfield.”

Laverde’s start to the pre-season was stalled slightly when he had to have his appendix taken out.

But he’s now recovered and is steadily increasing his training program as he builds up his fitness.

“I’m feeling good, I’m pretty much back to full health and getting my workloads up for full training,” he said.

“I couldn’t do anything for a couple of weeks … it took a little bit of time to get back into the weights room but I’m feeling good now and hopefully it doesn’t set me back too much.

“Now I need to catch up on what I missed so … I’ll look to get the fitness base going so hopefully I can move into the midfield later in the season.”

Laverde said he’s better equipped now to deal with the challenges of an AFL pre-season but that didn’t necessarily make the sessions any less difficult.

“You get used the training loads and preparing yourself each session so I guess it gets a little bit easier in that sense, but it’s still definitely hard in the pre-season,” he said.

“The boys are pushing levels that we haven’t pushed before … everyone is excited and looking forward to this year.”