I’m feeling good, just a little anxious, but mainly excited. I think everyone’s in the same boat. I just want to get to Saturday and then get out there and start playing again in front of a good crowd at ANZ Stadium.
We’ve prepared perfectly. At the moment the injury list is short, with just a few young guys on it, and everyone else is up and running. After such a long pre-season, the fitness staff have got us primed for the start of the competition.
It’s a full-on process. Like players at all clubs, we speak to them all the time and let them know if we’re sore or getting a bit tired. We report in to the fitness and coaching staff every day - we’ve got a system in place to say how we’re feeling. We’re about honesty, so if you’re not feeling great, or you’re stressed out, there’s no point lying about it. Most guys now who are experienced know how to pace themselves and how to get ready for game day.
But anyway, I’m feeling fantastic, and so are my team-mates. After all the talk and all the training, the games actually mean something now.
I watched the game between Carlton and Richmond last night and have to say it was interesting. The umpires seemed to let the play go a lot more. Carlton looked all right though.
But my mind is on our opponents, St Kilda, and especially Clinton Jones, who has been my opponent the past two times we’ve played them - when they’ve beaten us by one point both times, if anyone needs reminding!
So I’ve been studying up on Clinton. I’ve played on him quite a few times now so I’ve just been looking at how I played last time - when he got me - and how to improve and how to combat him because he’s a very good player. I’m looking forward to the challenge.
It’s great to have six new players in our team. Daniel Bradshaw is going to play, he trained really well yesterday and we’ve got Jets (Lewis Jetta) playing his first game, so it’s going to be a new look, but I think the boys are quietly confident.
The midfield is definitely going to be different this year. Josh Kennedy is another big body who can get it out of the middle, and help Kirky and Jude, and you’ve got Jets coming in who has that outside run, so he can help in that area with me and Rhyce Shaw and Mal (Nick Malceski).
Ben McGlynn also brings a lot of run, he’s really fit and he’ll probably get a job on someone tomorrow night and be looking to shut them down.
The two new ruckmen in Seabs and Mummy are really hard at it, they follow up well and are good at getting other mids out of the way for us, so it’s a real bonus for us this year.
We hope to see everyone out there at ANZ Stadium tomorrow night to cheer us on!
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Jarrad McVeigh
