Q – What will the majority of the pre-season fitness program encompass? What will be involved before Christmas in the first phase of the program?
A – We’ll step up on what we’ve done over the past three years. We now move to the next phase of that. We treat our juniors a little bit differently around the club, and we look after them and continue to develop and nurture them to make sure they form the nucleus of our Premiership teams in 2005 and 2006. But the main aim here is to win a Premiership in 2002. So the very first training session will be directed at that and every training session we do, every rep the players do in the gym, every run through, every single part of training is directed at winning a Premiership.
Q – Are you excited about footy as much as you were at the start of last season? I mean you’ve been here two years now and you’ve sort of immersed yourself in a football culture. Are you still excited about footy?
A – Yes – I am probably more excited now than ever before. Despite the disappointment of losing a Grand Final that challenges you to find a better way so that doesn’t happen again. I don’t think I am the smartest fitness coach in the group but I hope I am not the dumbest and I don’t want to be taught the same lesson twice. So that excites me, that scares me and I think everyone has their doubts, everyone has their strong convictions – well I’m a mixture of all that and if I can harness those things, then from a fitness perspective we can lift these players to a whole new level. That’s the aim so that is very exciting because it’s an opportunity to make an impact. How could you not be excited by footy? Football has given me so many things in the short time I have been here. We’ve missed out on a Grand Final by a point, we have lost a Grand Final and we have won a Grand Final. We had a record breaking year last year with the players and we’ve had enormous ups and downs on the field and even more off the field. I’ve experienced nearly every emotion known to man at this footy club and I’ve only been here a short while. I love the job and it’s such a motivating place. The people you work with, particularly the players – it is an exciting environment to work in. I think just because we dropped a game doesn’t mean we’re not still in the midst of the most dominating era of football this club has ever known. History – we’ll be able to look back on perhaps last year and think that loss was very significant because it allowed these things to happen. Just like the Carlton game – it was the catalyst for things to happen. Well you can’t just look and say it is all lost, it is all gone – we are still moving through that. It is a very dangerous thing to drive looking in the rear view mirror because you’ll eventually crash your car. I prefer to keep my eye on the road. We’ve lost that Grand Final lets go and lets do things again.
