Footy’s back and everyone is certainly excited about getting out there this Saturday.  The boys have been up-and-about at training this week and have been making a lot of noise on the track, so it’s pretty clear that they’re pumped to get back on the field and play for four points this Saturday.

The coaches are excited too, although we’re a little bit more subdued than the players probably because we’re a bit more wary of what’s coming up, but we do feel like we’re prepared and ready to go.

Looking to Saturday’s match, we expect a pretty tough clash with GWS, who have showed over the pre-season that they have really improved in a lot of areas. Across their pre-season, they had a lot of good results including a big win over St Kilda in Wagga and then another good showing against Adelaide, where they only went down by eight points.

We also played them a couple of weeks ago in the NAB Challenge and won that match by 40 points, but we expect that they will throw a few different things at us to what they did in that game. With a few of their better players coming back in this week, we expect them to be a really strong opponent for us.

They’ve brought in a number of experienced players this season including Josh Hunt, Heath Shaw and one of our former players, Shane Mumford, all which make a big difference to their structures. They bring experience, direction and composure on field, which will certainly help some of the younger players they’ve got and is something we’ve certainly got to be mindful of.

Looking at our own team, it is going to be exciting to see big Buddy Franklin play his first official game in the red and white. We’ve seen bits and pieces of him throughout the pre-season and we’ve mostly liked what we’ve seen. His form in last Saturday’s practice match against the Lions, in the first half, was really good, so we’re hoping he can build on that.

We’re really looking forward to him getting out there and playing in the real deal with the other boys and he’s excited and I know the boys are excited as well.

It’s also been great to see some good pre-season signs from Gary Rohan, who has been really solid across all of our pre-season hit outs. He and Sam Reid have both been consistent performers in the forward line and Gary in particular was really impressive throughout the NAB Challenge and ended up as our leading goal kicker – which he keeps reminding me of!

We really hope that good form can continue from Gaz, because he certainly will become a very exciting player for us if it does.