Lockyer is part of the seven-man leadership group at Collingwood which consists of captain Nathan Buckley, vice captain James Clement, deputy vice-captains Josh Fraser and Ben Johnson, as well as himself, Rhyce Shaw and Nick Maxwell. He knows the importance of helping the emerging Collingwood players take the next step, especially given the fact that half the the list is in their first, second or third year at the club.
“As a leader of the club, you want to put the process in place where they can develop their bodies, put on a bit of weight, bit of strength, bit of size, and then improve their footy knowledge, their footy brain, their endurance and that sort of stuff”, Lockyer told CTV.
“We’re just trying to fast-track those guys, they’re very young and pretty raw, so the hardest thing is getting their bodies ready to play AFL footy.
“So what you try and do is guide the younger fellas and show them the right way to go about it and hopefully the penny drops pretty quick and they learn.”
Lockyer had his first real hit-out of 2007 last Friday when he took to the field against St Kilda, and after a productive pre-season was happy with the outing. He will be part of the side that travels to the NSW Riverina town of Narrandera to take on Sydney this Friday night.
“The pre-season in general has been pretty good, uninterrupted, which is what you want out of a pre-season, to get through unscathed, so from that perspective it was good.”
“First hitout (against the Saints), good to get through. Very sore, and very stiff the day after, it was quite a warm day, and I played pretty much the whole game, but good to get through and get a few kicks, and obviously good for the boys to play well and to get a win, which is very important.”
Lockyer, who played every match in 2006 for a total of 142 in eight seasons, has endured several serious injuries during his career, but has shown tremendous resilience and perseverance to get so close to the 150-game milestone, although he’s very level-headed about getting to that point.
“Milestones are pretty special, if I get the opportunity to play my 150th, that would be fantastic, but there are seven games between then, so we’ll worry about those first.
“But I suppose you don’t really think about it until you get to the day, so I’m sure on the day, if and when I get there, it’ll be pretty special, but until then I’ll concentrate on trying to get some runs on the board.”
To watch the full Tarkyn Lockyer interview on CTV - FREE – please click on the relevant related link within this article.
