After North Melbourne's elimination final loss to the Sydney Swans, three players from that side – Adam Simpson, Daniel Pratt and Ed Lower – underwent surgery to repair shoulder injuries they'd sustained earlier in the season. Pratt had carried his since round 11.
Time in a sling ahead of a re-introduction to basic movement, gradual skill work and weights was the early part of a process that is now as good as complete, with Lower and Simpson able to tackle teammates from last Monday.
"We both felt confident," Lower said. "It's probably more the fitness staff wanting to hold you back a bit.
"It is the pre-season, so there's a long time where you probably don't have to do the contact stuff. Now we're getting more and more into game-specific training, Simmo, Pratty and I are pretty keen to start doing everything."
Lower said that soon after their operations the trio started a race to see who would be the first to reach full fitness.
While Pratt is just behind his teammates, held back because of his history of shoulder injuries, all were ahead of schedule when strength and conditioning coach Paul Turk made his pre-Christmas assessment.
Lower was initially expected to see out his year with eventual VFL premier North Ballarat, but it was decided his preparations for 2009 would benefit from having surgery right away.
"I was looking forward to playing in the final but at the same time I'm here to play AFL footy," he said. "Dean (Laidley) and the other coaches were pretty adamant about getting it right for this year and so far, so good.
"Who knows? If I played I might have done further damage. I was really pleased to see the boys win and would love to have been a part of it but it wasn't to be. Hopefully there's more of that in the seniors."
Key position prospect Robbie Tarrant is following an opposite course, forced to undergo a shoulder reconstruction in November.
Pleasingly, he's since joined in non-contact training with the hope of being ready for round one.
"There's four of us so it does make it a bit easier," Lower said. "I'd never had it (shoulder surgery) and wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I'd had a couple of other little operations and that was by far the longest to get over pain-wise.
"If I had surgery midway through the season, I think it would have been a lot more difficult to watch the boys play footy.
"Because I got through the season and a couple of the other boys had it, and because you're not missing any footy, it's not the hardest thing in the world."
