Player Column – Ben Saunders Round 6

EVERYTHING is going pretty smoothly at the moment as a club and it's happy days right now, but it's only five games in and I don’t think we have really proven anything. We have Subi this week and that's a massive test and it's exciting to find out where we are at in comparison to them because they are the benchmark.

We did have a pretty good pre-season last year and the start to the season so we didn’t really change too much this year. We did load up a little more with the help of our strength and conditioning guys and then coming into the year I don’t know if anything in particular was done differently but the players we have picked up have made a massive difference. Those additions can quickly take you from an average team to being right up there competing, but we can't get too excited yet. 

Personally, I've cut out my choc milks and iced coffees. I've gone cold turkey on them. I think it was last year when I did my hammy that I realised after having a chat to the doc and Swanny that dropping weight would be the best thing for me and the team. I've stuck pretty hard to a diet that Rach wrote up for me and it wasn’t even that bad, I could have bacon and eggs for breakfast.

I stuck to that and ended up dropping about 9kg which really helped me and over the pre-season I touched based with Todd a lot about where my body was at. The S & C guys were making sure that I stacked on sessions back to back to back, and as long as I was getting the load in whilst still feeling alright then that's what we were hoping for. I had a few scattered pre-seasons the last few years, but I had a really good one this year and I feel as though I'm in reasonably good nick in terms of my body.

And my body is playing a pretty big role in me being able to do a bit more out on the field. Todd really wanted me to lift in terms of my pressure in the forward-line. I always knew I needed to do that, but actually executing that is now a nice feeling to be able to lay tackles, pressure and chase, and actually give repeat efforts.

Our forward-line is a lot of fun to play in at the moment. We feel like we are all moving well as a unit. Blaine Johnson, Stevey Edwards and even Strommy work so hard and don't necessarily get the rewards of goals like myself and Mase have been able to cash in. I feel as if they are all just around the corner of kicking a bag as well. The work they all do is huge and Mase has been working really hard as well. It's really exciting for me personally just to be able to play alongside all these guys who are firing and working together so well as a unit.

It's then also super handy having blokes like Schloithey and Cooky who have rolled from that role as experienced mids to play that half-forward or deeper forward role at times. That just adds so much to our forward-line as well and we've got a pretty good dynamic there at the moment.

Now this week is massive for us against Subi. I feel as though everything we've done so far has been building to this game for us to get a good gauge of where we're at. This is a massive game but it can also be a learning curve for us no matter what happens or how we go. We will be able to take a lot from this game and base ourselves going forward on how well we go on Saturday.

It's hard to get bigger than the derby and you can't beat the atmosphere and feeling of a derby, and they are always special games, but this week will be different and as a team it's probably a game that's even more critical in terms of our development and finding out where we sit in the competition.

Last week I ran the mullet and moustache combo as well for the derby. I thought it was pretty good but the reason I've had to cut it this week is because it got too much attention from the ladies. Tessa, my girlfriend, got a bit jealous over all the attention I was getting.