The preseason is over and this week we travel to Melboune to kick off what we hope is a successful 2011 season.

It has been a really productive preseason for us, getting the opportunity to play against both Grand Final teams from last season, Collingwood and St Kilda, along with young teams from GWS and the Gold Coast. The key during every preseason is getting through without a lot of injuries and I think we’ve been quite lucky to have most of our best players fit, healthy and ready to go for round one.

Obviously Daniel Bradshaw, Tadhg Kennelly and LRT will be pressing in the next few weeks but apart from those guys, we have got good game time into each individual which is a real positive.

Expect to see a slightly different looking forward line this week and throughout the season. The interchange rule has forced our hand a little bit in the way we line up. I guess we’ll experiment with that over the coming weeks but may have to include the ruckman in our plans up forward. We will need our runners  to rotate on the bench, which will mean our key position players will have to play big minutes.

With a change in the coach’s box, certainly there will be a few things we do differently. John Longmire has different ideas and has his own brand of football that he likes to play. Over the preseason we’ve been able to test those new structures and I think the players are genuinely excited about the changes John has implemented.

Expect to see more of Sam Reid this year. He played really well in round 22 last year, and has developed again over the preseason. We don’t want to put too much pressure on Reidy, but we hope he can cement himself a spot in our forward line this season. He has recovered from shoulder surgery in the off-season and has managed to get his fitness levels right and string together three or four practice games. We’re not expecting miracles but we certainly believe he can be a very good player for this Club for a long time to come.

Not having Bradshaw available early in the year leaves us with a hole in our forward line, but it’s a situation we had to face last year and we played some brilliant football in the back end of 2010 without him. There’s no doubt he makes us a better side, and as the forward coach, I’d love to have him out there, but we should be able to cover his absence and set up a forward line that is able to score.

Melbourne are developing all the time and have some wonderful young kids and up-and-coming talent.  They will be looking to improve again this season and will be pushing as hard as they can to work into the top-eight and play finals football. They gave us a real hiding last year, so we are in no doubt about the challenge we have in front of us for round one of the season. It’s a great way to start the year, playing on the MCG.

Certainly the Demons defence is one of their strong areas. They have Jared Rivers, Colin Garland and Matthew Warnock to cover the talls. Jack Grimes is a terrific young kid who is improving all of the time and runs the ball out really well, while Clint Bartram is a real competitor. When you throw in players like Neville Jetta and Jamie Bennell, their back six can be really damaging.  Right across the competition everyone is talking about the forward press and forward lines having to put on pressure, but that is nothing new. For our forwards, the Demons’ strong defence will be a good challenge. As always, we will be looking for a strong, competitive effort across the board, we’ve just got to compete hard and hold the ball in as long as we can. 

I’d imagine that we, as well as all other clubs who have a relatively fit list ahead of round one, will have some disappointed players when the final teams are released, but having competition for spots is a healthy position to be in.

You may have seen during the preseason, that we have been using blindfolds to  improve some kicking techniques. I’m hopeful that it has made a difference, but if Jetts misses his first shot or two on goal, I might have to run one out at quarter time and throw it on him!