Burton out to earn respect

HAWTHORN young gun Ryan Burton is hoping to use the club’s pre-season camp in Mooloolaba to earn the respect of his new premiership teammates as he tackles his first AFL pre-season.

Taken with pick 19 at this year’s NAB AFL Draft, Burton is looking to get the most he can out of the Hawks’ trip to the Sunshine Coast with his sights already set on a 2016 debut.

“For the camp pretty much (my aim is to) just to increase my fitness base and skill level as well as gain some respect from the boys and just getting to know everyone,” Burton said.

“If I can keep doing all that stuff I’ll hopefully land my goal of playing next year.”

Having been on the comeback trail from a knee injury suffered when he broke his leg in August 2014, Burton’s fitness is progressing well as the Hawks take a cautious approach with the North Adelaide product.

“Training’s good, I haven’t really had any troubles with the knee, they’re sport of just conserving me a little bit at the moment and easing me in to it so at this rate the knee is all good.”

Staying with triple premiership teammates Jack Gunston and Isaac Smith whilst on camp, Burton is enjoying picking up as much as he can from his senior teammates, as well as trying to keep up with the pace they set.

“With the running I tried to hang with Ryan Schoenmakers and those boys because they run some pretty good times.

“In training I pretty much look around at the forwards when we do our forwards drills, see what they’re doing try to pick up some patterns, so it’s been good so far."