Hawthorn High Performance Manager Peter Burge has praised the team’s pre-season work rate in a wide-ranging interview with Hawks Insiders. 

Burge also spoke about some standout players during the pre-season, how Calsher Dear is tracking with his recovery from a back injury and what makes him excited about the Kennedy Community Centre from a high-performance perspective. 

We summarised some of the key points from his chat with Ash Browne and Danny Prins below. 

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO PETER BURGE’S CHAT WITH HAWKS INSIDERS

On the players’ pre-season attitudes 

“I don't know if I've used the term blue collar before with you guys, but they are workhorses and they want to work harder. Sometimes we stop the session and they want more. They're amazing to work with. They work really, really hard to keep it simple. I'm sure every club says the same thing, but this group of players works as hard as I've seen any group work. They just want more and more work, so that makes my job quite easy, in the sense that I've just got to give them the program and direct them and keep them honest with their intensity and the level (they train). But I would say that they are still evolving. There's still a young cohort in the group who've still got lots of improvement left in them and more pre-seasons left in them to build more resilience and more endurance and more speed.”

On Cam Mackenzie’s pre-season

“Cam Mackenzie has done 100 per cent of our whole pre-season and has not missed a drill. He’s just going from strength to strength. It's a real shame (what happened to him at) the end of last year, just before that Bulldogs game. For two years, this guy had not reported a single thing medically and then just accelerating out of a stoppage in training, he just noticed a bit of a cramping sensation in his hammy and we got the scan and he had a very low-level hamstring strain. He wasn't going to be able to play and that was really just devastating for him, you know, about to play in his first final. So he's gone away and worked his butt off and he just wants to take it to another level this year.” 

On how Tom Barrass has settled in

“He has been amazing. He’s been so good to work with and I'm listening to him as well. It's not just a one-way street. He's been in full training since Christmas and even the last week before Christmas, he was in most of our drills. There's been a lot of learnings around some of the things he's been dealing with in the last two to three years. From a body point of view, we might do things a little differently at the Hawks to maybe the way West Coast did them. We feel really confident that some of the things that we do and the way we operate have been able to really benefit him.” 

On Calsher Dear’s injury

“Yeah, there's a natural disappointment. For the first six weeks, he wasn't allowed to do anything except walk. But, you know, Adrian Hickmott took him under his wing and he started learning how to play the guitar and doing some other different things, just different stuff to really engage him and keep him going. We're at a point now where he's really enjoying being able to move again and do some sprint drills and some other specific stuff. The next stage is he will start some technical running and then we're just looking forward to that next scan. Hopefully, it gives us the news we want and we can progress to some football training.”

On some of his pre-season standouts 

“Karl Amon stood out for me with his conditioning and his running power. Josh Weddle is the obvious one but Jarman Impey, I always watch him train and the level of intensity he trains at, I just admire him. He doesn't miss this much at all. Then you've got someone like James Worpel who's always first at the club every day, first in the door. He just works extremely hard and doesn't miss anything. We talked about Cam Mackenzie before and some of the younger brigade there as well. Bailey Macdonald’s another one who stood out for me throughout the last couple of weeks with his change of pace and his burst at training. It’s hard to go through and not leave anyone out because as a group, they work together really hard.”

On how KCC is looking from a high-performance perspective

“We’re absolutely excited about it and it's real, like it's happening and it's happening this year. Both grounds now have grass on them and are actually marked out. Goal posts are up. We have the ability to actually do a training session on the grounds next month or even this month, I'm not sure. It's absolutely exciting. Some of the things we've been able to do as a club and implement into the facility, some innovation, whether it's recovery facilities or a heat and humidity chamber, the learning rooms, breakout spaces, the indoor kicking space, yeah, it’s just next level. But high performance is about attitude and doing the work, so having the facility is one thing, but doing the work and executing still has to be the absolute priority.”