Tuesdays with Todd

Going into last year's pre-season, the philosophy was all about getting used to a new regime through head fitness staff Andrew Russell and Peter Burge. It was slightly different to what the players had experienced before. It was more about the running aspect of conditioning. The whole program for most of the pre-season was based around being as fit as we possibly could.

From the year we had in 2005 we recognised that the skill focus had to be lifted. This year we've tried to combine the conditioning with a lot more football-oriented skills. So it was a real balance between what Andrew Russell wanted and what Alastair Clarkson and the coaching staff wanted.

I think the results have showed with all the running tests that we've done that even though we've introduced a lot more football and perhaps not as much running, our fitness tests have been just as good if not better than last year.

Unfortunately last year with a young group, we made a lot of skill-based errors and gave the opposition the ball back on too many occasions. You can be as fit as you like but at the end of the day if you can't maintain possession of the football, you're up against it. We've got to be fit to be able to compete but we've also had to improve our level of skill. The best chance of doing that is at pre-season time.

With the two Bs - Beau Dowler and Beau Muston - we obviously knew going into the draft that they had some injury concerns. Beau Dowler has been the one who's developed a lot quicker than we were expecting. He's running around and kicking the footy. We're hopeful that he'll play quite a bit of football this year, so that's a bonus.

When he makes his return to playing competitive footy, he'll obviously play games with Box Hill. If he can show enough that he deserves a go in the seniors, we'll certainly give him that opportunity.

And with Beau Muston, we just felt that his knee hadn't responded very well to his first operation. Rather than waiting for an accident to happen and having all the trauma associated with doing it in a game, he could go in and have that corrected under an operation scenario and the result would be a lot better and his recover a lot quicker.

He's starting to move around pretty well now and joining in a lot of the training stuff, not much out on the ground but in the gym. We'll have to wait and see how he goes but he won't play a lot of footy this year.

Young Max Bailey was up in the ruck against 'Spida' for the full four quarters in our intra-club match last Friday and really competed well. He held his own. Max's 'Gold' team actually won the centre bounce clearances. Not too many ruckmen could say they could compete with 'Spida' in their first year and he did a fantastic job. He was really going along nicely.

Xavier Ellis matched up with Harry Miller. Harry was one of the better players and he's looking great. Xavier when he does get the footy he looks like a class player. He reminds me a lot of Adem Yze from Melbourne. He always seems to have time and composure. He doesn't make mistakes very often. He just looks like a sure ball-handler, a natural player. He's going to be a great asset.

Grant Birchall has probably been the one who stood out probably in the pre-season so far. He was probably a little bit quieter on Friday night but he's had a couple of really good practice games. In the competitive games that we had, he kicked two goals on Shane Crawford from a half-back flank. He's sort of a half-back midfielder type but he's taller than Trent Croad. He can really move, a natural player. A beautiful kick, I wouldn't be surprised to see him get game time in the NAB Cup, or early in the real season.

We went into the rookie draft knowing that a couple of the newly-drafted players were going to play. The possibility of getting some of the rookies onto the senior list because of long-term injuries is going to be a possibility. We have guys like Ben Kane - who was dropped off the list last year because of terrible injuries. He's trained the house down over the pre-season and been playing some strong footy. He has put himself into position.

Stephen Gilham from Port Adelaide has played really well, too. He's a chance to come up along with Kaney. I don't think there's any rush for us to make that decision but closer to the start of the year … It will probably be a contest to see who'll go up but they're both performing really well.