He might only be midway through his first proper pre-season in the AFL, but St Kilda forward Josh Battle is demonstrating a level of professionalism beyond his years.

Battle, 19, juggled his final year at Haileybury College with his first year of league football in 2017, breaking through for a debut against Essendon in Round 17, amid 14 appearances for Sandringham in the VFL.

But with school now behind him, Battle has thrived in a full-time environment, drawing praise from Senior Assistant Coach Rohan Welsh for his diligence on the track and in the gym this summer.

“His professionalism has been brilliant; you can’t fault him in that area, he is a real pro,” Welsh told saints.com.au on Friday afternoon.

“He gets all his work done on the track and in the gym, as well as with edits and his diet.

“Since ‘Dicko’ [Ben Dixon] has been down here he’s been out there doing his shots in the morning before training and then he’s always one of the last ones to get off the track at the end of training.

“He’s been able to do a lot more work in the gym and put on some size, so he’s much stronger than he was last year; I suppose that’s the benefit of having him in the program full-time.”

Despite standing at 193cm, Battle has quickly established himself as one of the leading distance runners at Linen House Centre, finishing amongst the leading back in the 3km time-trial at the start of January.

But while Battle’s endurance is an asset, Welsh said the Dandenong Stingrays product has had to work on his running patterns during the pre-season to transform him into a more dangerous option deep, rather than between the arcs.

“It’s been a real learning curve for him this pre-season. Because he’s such an elite runner, he thinks he needs to run up and back, whereas we need him to play as a key forward,” Welsh said.

“We want him to get the ball in the vicinity of the goals and not 100 metres away. He’s in a real learning phase of his footy.

“We spend a lot of time out on the track working through running patterns and we do more of that in craft sessions where we work out patterns for when we win the ball in the defensive half.”