Hi Swans fans. I am back doing my blog ready to give you some details about my life as a Swan over summer.
Let me start with pre-season and how I am going so far. We started off with a lot of running - running here, running there, and at first I was scared to come back because it sounded so hard but when I arrived back in Sydney I thought, I am just going to have a real crack.
I must admit I needed a bit of work and I was last in a lot of the runs we did. I was struggling and I had the little voice in my head saying ‘stop’ and ‘just go home and play the game’ but I kept telling the voice to shut up because no way in hell am I stopping.
After running for about 5-6 weeks we started skills and I must say my skills were still good. I needed a little bit of work but that was it, and then when I saw the footballs my eyes just lit up and I could not stop smiling and I got so excited.
After Christmas we got into more skills and the intensity of training lifted. I didn’t realise how hard pre-season was so when I went home to Western Australia for Christmas I was pretty careful not to eat too many chicken sandwiches.
I came back fit and ready to go. We’ve been doing goal-kicking practice every week, and part of the practice is to try to kick a goal with your eyes closed
It’s something our forwards coach Johnny Blakey gets us to do, because he says it helps with our technique, our balance and getting a feel for it. Johnny says at first we could hardly even get the ball onto our foot with our eyes closed, but now in my goal kicking practice I’ve been getting more shots through with my eyes closed than with my eyes open.
It’s all about relaxing, and with my eyes closed I relax and let it happen rather than trying too hard like I do with my eyes open.
So with my set shots or running goals this coming season I might try doing it with my eyes closed!
It’s a bit of fun apart from anything else.
In the pre-season I’ve managed to pack on 2kgs of muscle, but my calf muscles still need a bit of work. I’m still built for speed!
