Medical room: Matthew Kreuzer continues to track towards a round one return, but the club is not placing that expectation on him. He has just started straight-line training. Brock McLean continues on a modified program despite his desire to push the boundaries imposed on him and will join the main program after Christmas, as will Jordan Russell who has also been on a modified program since post-season surgery. Luke Mitchell underwent surgery on his 'good' shoulder mid-December, but is expected to be ready to play by March. Andy Collins and Jeff Garlett also underwent shoulder surgery in the off-season and will join the main group post-Christmas.
"We're not putting a definite date on Kreuzer's return because we don't want to have to make decisions based on a timeline," football operations manager Steven Icke said.
Who's burning: Long-time fitness fanatic Andrew Walker continues to lead the way in pre-season time trials, but Mitch Robinson, Robbie Warnock, Chris Yarran, Marc Murphy and Bryce Gibbs have all caught the eye with some personal best efforts.
"We can get caught up in early training form and it means nothing when it comes to round one. But the bottom line is confidence comes from having a good preparation and from those boys' points of view they can go into the Christmas break knowing they've had a really good pre-season," Icke said.
Draftee watch: The Blues continued a tradition of strong ties with SANFL club Glenelg when it drafted defender Patrick McCarthy. The club was mindful of the fact McCarthy was moving away from a large family residing not far from Adelaide's metropolitan beaches and has placed him with a host family in a bayside Melbourne suburb.
"From a physical and emotional point of view it's a big shift for these young men to come into a full-time program. While we put them through a very active schedule, the careful management of these lads is paramount," Icke said, adding the draftees had completed 70 to 80 per cent of the entire program.
Membership: Carlton's membership tally stood at 20,250 on December 23. That figure was higher than at the same time last year when the club was still dealing with the fallout from its decision to part ways with fallen star and fan favourite Brendan Fevola.
After the break: The players will return to Visy Park on Thursday, January 6. The group will continue to be put through a pre-season training format for approximately a fortnight when the switch will be made to an in-season program. The club is yet to finalise its intra-club practice match schedule.
Telstra Community Camp: The Blues will travel to the northern Victorian country town of Benalla for their 2011 Telstra AFL Community Camp on February 14 and 15. The exact details of their activities in the town situated 200km north-east of Melbourne are yet to be finalised.
NAB Cup opener: February 12 v Richmond and Collingwood at Etihad Stadium.
"We play to win everything and that's certainly going to be our approach to the NAB Cup, but we won't be putting any players at risk. The only players we'll pick are the ones who are absolutely ready to play," Icke said.
What they say: "We've had a really good run to the Christmas break. We've been able to get some very good volumes of training into most of the guys. At this stage of the year you're also managing your guys so they're not at risk of over-use injuries, but I think we can look back and say that there has been a lot of varied activity in our pre-Christmas program and we're very happy with the way it has been run. You get an enormous amount of confidence knowing that you've got through this phase of the pre-season program as well as we have." - football operations manager Steven Icke.
The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL.
