""I’m looking forward to it. It’s a different sort of atmosphere to an Olympic Games but I love the professional circuit because it means everybody can participate,"" Lewis said. ""It means the footballers can compete against the professional running off the handicap marks so it should be fun. Hopefully it’ll help build the profile of athletics. I’ve trained with some of the footballers before and some of them can run, some of them are a bit ordinary so it should be a bit interesting.""
Essendon fitness coach John Quinn says the day will be an important part of the pre-season build up for some players.
""We’ve been involving our players in professional running for a couple of years and our players have really enjoyed it and we thought it was time that we had a Gift here at Windy Hill and fortunately the VAL were pretty responsive to that idea, so it’s here and response has been tremendous,"" Quinn said.
""We’ve sent invitations to the Melbourne-based clubs and we’ve got confirmation from Carlton and North Melbourne and a couple pending. We’ve got a four by 400m relay, which always fairly spectacular at the Olympic Games and we’re going to have it here at Windy Hill and there’s $2500 prizemoney, which we’ve got no intention going outside of Windy Hill but they’re going to try and take it.""
""I think it’s really important during the pre-season just to give them a different emphasis on everything else. The footy season by nature is quite long and this just gives them a different focus.
""We’ve got a few of our names, McVeigh and McPhee are going to be running, Cupido will be here, we’ve got Lovett-Murray, we’ve got Lovett. They’re all very keen to run. None of the boys have said they don’t want to run so it’s going to be a good day.
""Football’s a running game and we do a lot of running here at Essendon, we do a lot of speed work so this fits nicely in with what we do. I think we’ve surprised in the past. We’ve really just done it as an experience for our players, but we’ve had a couple of winners at the novice level, but for us it’s not necessarily, this sounds very Olympian; it’s not about winning, it’s about taking part.
""They won’t embarrass themselves, put it that way. It’ll be a good fun day but Essendon are there to win it, not to make up the numbers (he’s talking about the footballers relay).
``We want to make this into something that is a regular fixture and we think it’s good for the Essendon Football Club, good for the sporting community here in Essendon but also good for athletics here in Victoria and hopefully the relationship will go from strength to strength.
""Some players are more disposed to the quicker work, so they’ll be doing the 70s and the players that can run over distance they’ll be out there running the one lap. I know that they’ve had 400 entries for the Gift here at Windy Hill and from knowledge that’s a tremendous response.
Essendon rookie Nathan Lovett-Murray is one of the Bomber players who will be taking part in the Gift meeting.
""We got entered into a couple of Gifts last year and I really enjoyed myself, so it should be good going into the Essendon one. It’s something different. It takes us out of the natural environment that we’re always training in and to run against professional runners and just to see where you’re at at professional level,"" he said.
""It takes you back to high school and primary school athletics. I’m not as quick as my cousin Andrew (Lovett). He’s pretty quick, so I’ll leave the sprint work up to him. A few of the boys want that bragging right to be the fastest at the club so it’s pretty competitive.""
The inaugural Essendon Football Club Gift meeting – sanctioned by the Victorian Athletics League - will be staged on the hallowed turf of Windy Hill. The highlight of the day will be the running of the $5000 Essendon Football Club Musashi Gift (120m).
The Essendon Football Club Gift is proudly sponsored by Musashi in conjunction with Rendina Real Estate, Shell autoserv and Kirwan Group Services.When: Sunday, November 28th
Where: Essendon Football Club, Windy Hill
When: from 11am
Prices: Adults $6, Children (12 – 16 years) $3, Concession $3.
For more information about the EFC Gift click here.
