Essendon spearhead Joe Daniher says he welcomes the pressure of leading the Bombers' attack in the club's quest to find more firepower.
Daniher, who has overcome a knee injury and will have his first major pre-season hit-out when Essendon takes on Gold Coast in sweltering conditions in Mackay on Sunday, is excited by the Bombers' scoring potential in a new-look forward line.
The 22-year-old (he'll be 23 on March 4) was forced to carry a drastically weakened attack by himself last year as the club coped with crippling season-long doping suspensions to key players and he performed admirably, kicking 43.32 to lead Essendon's goalkicking.
"If we want to become a successful team, we need to be a team that scores heavily but also we need to be a team that's quite ruthless in defence and keep the opposition to low scores. It's a fine balance and we're working on both," Daniher told reporters at Melbourne Airport on Saturday morning.
"It's an exciting opportunity to work with guys who I haven't worked with a lot before and some new guys. We're going in the right direction and to have some exciting options up there is something the fans and I am pretty excited about."
Bombers great Matthew Lloyd believes Daniher and the returning Cale Hooker are capable of kicking 100 goals between them this season, but Daniher is focusing more on short-term goals.
"It's not about putting numbers on it at the moment, it's about finding a balance between the six forwards and those resting midfielders," he said.
"It's often the team that improves the most from the start of the year that will have the success come the back end of the year."
Daniher's left-knee problem has limited his pre-season, but he's confident he will be primed for the round one blockbuster against Hawthorn.
"It's good. I'm feeling really good. I'm lucky that the fitness staff put me on a managed program for the whole pre-season, so I'm really confident with the amount of work that I've been able to do," he said.
"It was all about getting it right for the right time of the year and I feel like I've got enough time to get the best preparation in for round one."
He is also optimistic about improving his wayward set-shot goalkicking.
"I've done a lot of work over the summer and it's something that I've had to build up over a little bit longer than I would have liked, but (I'm) feeling really good at the moment," he said.
Daniher has previously worked with Lloyd on his set-shot routine but said he had sought help from a range of people this pre-season, though he had "not necessarily" tinkered with his technique.
"I've got a lot of people I source for expertise around my game and try (to) use as many resources as I can. I feel like I'm very lucky to have access to a lot of great people and I use them in a lot of different ways and it's something I'll continue doing, finding more people that can help me become the player I want to," he said.
As for the latest development in the supplements scandal, with a tape of a 2013 meeting between Essendon officials becoming public on Friday, Daniher said the players were simply focused "moving on and playing football".
"I'm here to play football (and) do my job, and I'm really excited about what we can produce as a football club in 2017," he said.
"I think the fans should be really excited about that, the AFL world should be excited about that, and us as players are looking forward to it."
