Essendon players and coaching staff have emerged from a three-day camp in Healesville with a clearer understanding of the standards they expect from each other heading in to the 2016 season.
Strategy rather than fitness was the focus of the trip and Coach John Worsfold said the attention now turns to delivering on the expectations the group has set.
“Now the challenge is to train it in the next few months and get them so they really know what everyone’s role is,” he said.
“We’ve spent a couple of days talking through the way we want to play the game, some expectations about the standards we want to live up to.
“We talked about what leadership criteria we want to hold each other accountable to, so it has been a lot more classroom work than a training camp.
“We’ve spent a good day and a half getting clear on what we want to try and achieve together.”
Worsfold has been in the job since the start of October.
The premiership coach said rolling out his game plan will require some adjusting with kicking more goals a priority.
“There will be subtle differences, nothing massive, but hopefully you’ll see that the players are on the same page in the way they want to play, that they embrace the style of footy they want to play together,” he said.
“They certainly have talked this week about wanting to score more heavily and we’ve talked about how we think we can do that.”
The Bombers worked on transitioning the ball from defence to attack in hot temperatures before hundreds of fans in Healesville on Wednesday.
“With our best squad fit and available, it’s a pretty talented squad,” Worsfold said.
“Our job is to get those guys fit and firing and we think we can compete with most of the teams."
Worsfold said he was pleased with the progress the players had made to this point of the pre-season and while he made a reputation as an aggressive player on the field, he hadn’t had to revert to giving a ‘spray’ too often in the early stages of his Essendon coaching career.
“If you asked them, they’d say he sort of has,” Worsfold said. “I give subtle sprays, but they’ll know when they haven’t worked at the level they’ve challenged each other to reach.”
