THIS TIME last year Xavier Ellis was concentrating on his year 12 studies after an injury interrupted season with Melbourne Grammar and the Box Hill Hawks.
A pre-season further interrupted by hamstring problems followed, before a year during which he totted up 13 AFL games and even scooped the Best First Year Player award at the club's Best and Fairest presentation night.
This year the 19-year-old is hoping that a smooth pre-season will propel his career even further in season 08.
"I missed a lot of pre-season with a torn hamstring so effectively my first year was a battle with fitness," Ellis said. "I'm going to put a good pre-season together now and hopefully I'll play better football."
While Ellis has played mainly in defence for the Hawks, he harbours ambitions of securing a midfield role for the club.
"I had a chat with Clarko (coach Alastair Clarkson) one on one and he said that next year he's going to give me a lot of opportunities in the midfield.
"I'm going to make errors but that's the only way to improve by playing in the midfield and learning as quickly as possible."
Hawthorn boasts the youngest list in the league going into season 2008, with the average age of the group a tender 23 years. But despite losing seasoned campaigners such as Richie Vandenberg, Ben Dixon and Joel Smith, Ellis believes the playing group has the required maturity to be successful.
"We've got Buddy (Lance Franklin), Roughy (Jarryd Roughead) and Jordan (Lewis) who have played 50 games. They're gathering experience and hopefully from my draft, Grant (Birchall), myself and Beau Dowler… hopefully we can pick up where they left off.
"We all enjoy each other's company on the field and off the field. Come 2008, even though we've got the youngest list we're pretty confident in each other's abilities.
"I'm sure we'll progress up the ladder if we stick to the team rules and what the coach says. It'll pay off sooner rather than later."
Much has been said and written about the Hawks' "process". Coach Clarkson has lauded the ability of Geelong to stick to theirs and used their success as an example of how faith in a club strategy can yield results.
It seems the team's young squad members are also supportive of this ethos.
"Geelong started their process about eight or nine years ago and it shows in what they did this year.
"They pretty much toyed with everyone else. We started ours in 2004 but with Buddy, Roughy and Jordan, who have progressed a lot quicker than expected, who says that we have to wait eight years.
"We had a lot of tough times in 2004, 2005 and 2006. We got beaten pretty convincingly a few times but hopefully with our list gathering a lot of experience, we can improve each year," Ellis says.
