Dan says meditation and a book recommended by Kirky have helped  him prepare for round one …

WE'VE spent the past six months preparing for the season that starts with our game against Melbourne at the MCG.

We’ve run countless laps, done gruelling time trials, worked on skills and been drilled on the game plan.

Most of the time pre-season is about the physical side of things such as your fitness and your speed.But as you get closer to round one, things start to change in terms of the pressure you put on yourself  to perform.

That’s when the importance of mental preparation really kicks in. As you approach the first game of the new season  you start getting into game mode and visualising it and thinking about the way you want to play your footy.

Early on in my career I just played footy and tried not to worry too much about it, but as you get more experienced your role changes and I worried about it more.

So I learnt a lot last year about mental preparation, and I can thank Kirky for putting me on to a book that really helped.

It’s called The New Earth by Eckhart Tolle and the idea is that the most important thing is to have a clear mind and make sure you’re not worrying about things that are out of your control.
It’s about focusing your mind on the present  and not being too concerned about the past or the future.

So the way it relates to AFL football for me is that it helps me not worry about making a mistake or to dwell on it when you do make one. If you worry about  making a mistake you’re not going to play as well when your mind is in that state. To concentrate on the job, you need to be present.

It’s a pretty popular book - it’s sold more than five million copies - and I got a bit out of it so I passed it on to Josh kennedy and he seemed to get a fair bit out of it as well. We both liked it, and then I gave it to Kieren (Jack) to read.

Kizza read one page and dismissed it straight away. There was something about a flower in the introduction and that was enough for Kizza! Eckhart Tolle can babble on a bit but if you give it a chance it was worth it, for me anyway.

I also did a course on meditation with Paul Roos’ wife, Tami, and that’s really helped me too. I believe in meditation and try to do it every day but probably haven’t done it as much as I should.

Kirky was very big on that and it does promote clearer thinking. It’s about trying to quieten that voice inside your head, which is relevant not just for footy players but everyone, so you can be more relaxed and calm.
Kizza is not into that either but he does love yoga and is the best in the club at that, it’s his favourite thing of the week.

Everyone is really excited about the season and round one and physically we’ve done everything we can, but now  the real test comes against Melbourne.

We’re all motivated  and really looking forward to taking on every challenge, to make sure you’re not afraid of having a crack and getting your hands dirty. Everyone prepares differently, but the main thing is we’ll go out there united, having done the work.