As we move into the festive season and finish (or in some cases start) our Xmas shopping spare a thought for our senior playing group who are back on the track and working hard on their preparation for the 2015 season. The boys have been back on the track now for just on 4 weeks and already some are showing their intentions to secure a permanent positon in our round 1 side.

In a recent interview with Senior coach Peter Bastinac he told us of his plans and focus for the preseason training program pre & post the Xmas period.

Peter told us he is taking a different approach this Pre Season. We are more footy specific on Monday & Wednesdays with an additional conditioning session on Saturday Mornings run by Sean Beer, this is aimed to assist in an overall plan to significantly raise the level of fitness across the playing group. The players are enjoying the mix and numbers have been “ok” but we look to build on our numbers early next year.

We haven’t been able to nail everyone down on the one night as this year seems to be a very busy finish to the year across all trades, this is somewhat frustrating but there in not much we can do about it Peter added.

Our main focus this Pre Season has been to quickly get back into “footy mode”, by this we are ensuring we have plenty of footys in hands and working on further developing our game style introduced this season.

Peter has introduced his “no nonsense” approach to football in his debut season with the club in 2014. He is very much committed to building a game plan totally focussed on structures, hard work and everyone playing their role within the team.

Emotion gets you so far in football but technique on all things footy and continue to do the hard work on our fitness is what is going to deliver long term success at this level Peter said. This list will continue to change as we raise the bar on the work rate and standards because we really need to build and continue to develop on from our 2014 season.

I am really learning who is committed to being the very best they can at this level.

The pleasing thing from my perspective is the growth of some of our emerging talent, boys like Deon Boavida, Dan Ousley, Ben Kernick, Mark Seedsman, Josh Herkess are all working extremely hard on the track and sending a message of their intentions for next season.

This is really encouraging from my point of view and l can see these boys making a serious claim for round 1 Peter noted.

Regulars senior players like Nik Shoenmakers, Steve Georgiou, Mitch Garner, Aaron Johns and Robbie Hill are leading by example whilst the return of 2012 “Mynott medallist’ Damien Garner after 2 seasons at Frankston will give the side some versatility.

Jack Ryan a development player from VFL side Coburg has joined the club and slotted into training and the playing group smoothly.

Training will conclude late December for the Xmas break and all players will be provided a program to maintain their fitness levels over the summer break. Players will resume their 2015 training program on Jan 28th where we will be aiming to conduct a full fitness testing session. It is hoped we can do this at the outstanding “Risehealth Group” training facility in Humphries Way Rowville under the guidance of Rowville Physio & Sports Medicine Director Stuart Canavan.

This will give us a real good understanding of who has done the work over the break period and the best way to develop all players leading into the upcoming season Peter told us. Further running sessions on the weekends with Sean Beer at the Lake will occur if needed to increase low fitness levels.

In addition to this our focus will be to continue the development of our Game Style, Skill/Technique in all our Line Areas & prepare for our Practice Matches.

We are also looking to have a Training Camp early February and this will be confirmed shortly.

In closing Peter said our goal for next season is to continue our development of our playing group, again look to promote and expose our young talent to a tough & challenging competition and still be super competitive at the same time.

Build on from our 2014 Season with an eye for playing finals footy the end goal.

We all need to understand to achieve our end goal is going to take hard work from all concerned, our players have to be dedicated go that extra mile to achieve and perform at a high level consistently. If they don’t they will get found out quickly at this level, the competition and the modern game takes no prisoners.

We have to work hard as a team, everyone else will be doing the same – we just have to do it better.