ESSENDON captain Matthew Lloyd admits he’s still coming to terms with being held back in training, even though he knows it’s an essential part of getting his game back to its breathtaking best.

The Bombers’ fitness staff has been under strict instructions to keep Lloyd to a modified training program over summer in the hope of preserving his fitness for 2008.

However, the spearhead – described as a “training animal” by his coach during the pre-season – says he’s slowly learning the pitfalls of entering veteran status.

“Our fitness coach said to me ‘you’re not the 19-year-old I first met’. I turn 30 in a few weeks and maybe I’ve tried to run with the midfielders a bit much and I’ve paid the price for it,” Lloyd said.

“I think I’ve had a soft tissue (injury)every year for about five years, so Ijust think I’ve got to be smarter and maybe train one day on, one day off next year, but – touch wood – hopefully I won’t have any troubles during this season.

“I gave (the injured hamstring) four weeks off when usually you’d give them three before playing a half, and with the Easter Monday game still a week and a half away, I’ll probably have three-four sessions and the weekend off.

“We haven’t beaten the Roos since ’01 in the ‘comeback’ game, so it’s one we’re really looking forward to.”

Lloyd says he would have enjoyed the chance to unleash himself in the NAB Cup, but is drawing inspiration from a fellow champion forward who endured similar troubles last year.

“In a perfect world, I’d have loved to had more game time than a half of footy, but I think if I didn’t take the break when I did I would have been going into round one under an injury cloud and not feeling too great before the season started,” he said.

“As Jonathan Brown showed last year, he might not have been going for the first seven or eight rounds, but by the end of the year everyone sure knew how well he was playing.

“I think as you get a bit older, (missing pre-season games) isn’t such a big issue.”

Lloyd has been critical of the lack of off-field discipline shown by some of his teammates in the past few years, but he says he’s been delighted with the strict approach adopted by the club over summer.

“I think we were being a bit lenient in the past and things just snowballed a little bit and now I think everyone knows what’s right and wrong, and what’s expected of the group,” he said.

“Just for the first year players coming into the club, once you get on top of things early, you don’t have any issues from there and they sort of train themselves.

“We thought we’d get on top of these things now so we won’t have any issues in the long run.”