AFTER a frustrating season that culminated in watching Collingwood's losing elimination final to Port Adelaide from the stands, injured forward Alex Fasolo is finally taking some positive steps.
The 21-year-old had season-ending surgery in May to repair a fracture to the navicular bone in his right foot.
But, after playing his last game in round five and enduring countless hours of rehabilitation from the tricky injury since, Fasolo is running again.
He plans on starting the Pies' pre-season on time, if not a few days early to get a jump-start on his 2014 campaign.
He's also got his eye on next season's revised format of the NAB Cup for his return to the field, but will settle for round one of the season proper if he needs to.
"[The foot] is absolutely terrific. I just started running in the last couple of weeks so I'm hoping to fly into 2014, day one of pre-season," Fasolo told AFL.com.au.
"I'll be back normal time, [when] one to four years [players start training], early November.
"I'd like to think I'll be around for round one of the NAB Cup but that's honestly not one of my goals - round one [of the home-and-away season] would have to be my goal."
With a long pre-season ahead of him after a year largely confined to limited training, Fasolo is realistic he probably won't leap straight into full training with his teammates.
He's expecting a slightly modified program but wants to be doing nearly the full regime when the group comes together in the first week of November.
"At the end of the day, I probably could roll into day one and do everything but with the way footy is these days, with a three-month pre-season, I'd rather be flying in March than November," he said.
"It will probably be slightly modified by I'll be doing almost everything."
Fasolo said it was "shocking" to watch Saturday night's 24-point loss to Port Adelaide and not be able to get out there and make a difference.
But he conceded the entire year had featured obstacles after he suffered the foot injury at training in mid May.
"It really hurt [missing Saturday night] but I missed a lot more than just the one game," he said.
"The whole year for me was very frustrating and quite hard to watch but to be honest, I'm kind of glad it's over.
"I wish it wasn't over so soon and the boys were still out there having a crack but it wasn't to be.
"[The game] was shocking to watch. We took a lot from it and we had a review this morning and covered what we needed to cover and we're just going to put it behind us and we're looking to jump straight into 2014."
Coach Nathan Buckley didn't pull any punches when he assessed the club's position directly after the shock loss to the Power.
He highlighted the need for cultural change and for the club to move on from its success of 2010.
The first step of the Pies' new dawn was taken on Tuesday with Darren Jolly, Alan Didak, Andrew Krakouer and Jordan Russell - and rookies Ben Richmond and Michael Hartley - delisted.
Fasolo said the sudden end to the club's season indicated there was a need for some sort of shift.
"At the end of the day, any team that doesn't win the premiership goes back and says, well, we need to change something, something needs to be changed," he said.
"Every team goes out at the start of the year and wants to be there on that last day in September, so changes need to be made."
