A year ago, Mattner was in exactly the same position after crossing to the Swans from Adelaide.
It was a positive move by any measure with the 26-year-old playing every game and finishing third in the Swans’ best and fairest.
He said the secret to his successful season was quite simple.
“Once your off-field arrangements are pretty well done, your footy follows on and I think that happened with me last year,” he said.
“I settled in really well and the club was really good with the off-field stuff, so that made my footy a lot easier.
“With Shawry too, he’s getting the off-field stuff settled down and his footy’s been really good.”
Having been a new face around the club last year, Mattner has faced a different challenge during this year’s pre-season – helping the club’s younger players realise their potential.
“I think it’s my ninth season this year, so when you start talking nine seasons, you’ve got to start handing over a lot of the knowledge to the younger guys,” he said.
“With the young blokes, the best thing about them is their enthusiasm.
“Guys like Mike Pyke and even guys that played a bit last year like Craig Bird and Kieren Jack, who just want to improve.
“Their enthusiasm around the club has been great and I think that rubs off on the older blokes. It makes them enjoy coming to training and playing footy and playing games.”
Some familiar faces departed in the off-season, including Tadhg Kennelly, Ben Mathews, Peter Everitt and Nick Davis, but Mattner said the team still felt stable heading into their round one clash with St Kilda on March 28.
“There are few older, experienced guys but we’ve also got some good young kids coming through like Craig Bird, Kieren Jack, Jarred Moore and these guys. They played last year and they’ll be all the better for last year’s experiences,” he said.
“We’ve got some settled heads like Brett Kirk, Barry Hall, Craig Bolton and Adam Goodes, so I think we’ve got a really settled team this year.”
Mattner had a slow start to the summer after undergoing hip surgery before Christmas, but he is approaching peak fitness after playing all of the Swans’ pre-season games.
He said a more consistent season and a seventh successive finals campaign were the club goals for 2009.
“That’s the hardest thing going around nowadays, to keep making finals. We showed last year that we were good for pretty much three-quarters of the year, but we fell away at the end of the year and that cost us a top-four spot,” he said.
“Making finals will be the first goal for the club and I think to get a good start to the year – winning, say, the first three or four games – would be really great and that sets you up for the year, too.”
Dream Team watch - Martin Mattner is rated a $351,700 defender in Toyota AFL Dream Team 2009.
