While no pre-season is ever remotely easy, this one has ‘gone up a notch’ at Linen House Centre, according to highly rated St Kilda wingman Jack Newnes.
The 23-year-old leader, who finished 5th in last season’s Trevor Barker Award, is an integral part of a core group at the club who are dragging the Saints along to new levels ahead of the JLT Community Series, which is now only 31 days away.
With the inclusion of off-season acquisitions, Nathan Brown, Koby Stevens and Jack Steele, on top of the return of Jake Carlisle, competition for spots is fierce at St Kilda. And as a result, the stakes have been raised this summer.
“It’s gone up a notch from last year, but they’re all very hard. I think because we’ve got a young group, each year’s going to get a lot harder and this one has definitely been that,” Newnes told Melbourne radio station SEN.
“It’s been an exciting few months because we’ve had a few inclusions with blokes like Jake Carlisle, Koby Stevens, Jack Steele, Nathan Brown and the new draftees as well, so it’s been a good one.”
After narrowly missing out on a return to finals action last year, Newnes says the Saints are more focused on improving again this year, rather than on the prize at the end of the tunnel of playing in September.
“We’ve been improving each year over the last couple of years,” Newnes said. “We’re focusing on improvement rather than the outcome, but as it stands at this point we’re looking reasonably good.”
As the new season draws closer – it’s now just 61 days before St Kilda faces Melbourne in Round 1 – match simulation is gradually being drip fed into the players’ diet bit by bit, much to the dismay of the players who are ready to sink their teeth into the real stuff.
“I think every AFL club would be excited at this time of year and with training we do a lot of match simulation but it’s only 10 or 15 minutes worth,” Newnes said.
“The boys get pretty frustrated when the coaches blow the whistle to stop that because everyone gets pretty fired up and up and about it.”
