TAKING it to the next level.
While Harry McKay said that a number of Blues were posting career-best numbers in pre-season, he knows the hard work is still to come.
Experienced players who have spent years cultivating their craft have stood out to the key forward over the summer period, with McKay impressed by the lengths they have gone to in order to up their games.
“If you look at the guys that had awesome seasons last year, ‘Weiters’, ‘Crippa’, Charlie [Curnow], Adam Saad – all those guys have come back and haven’t missed a session either,” McKay said.
“They’ve got enough runs on the board to chop and change their program but they’ve been adamant they want to do everything – the way those guys have been moving around at the moment have set themselves up for a really good year.”
Closer to home in the forward line, Carlton's emerging group of small forwards have also caught McKay's eye.
“Jesse Motlop and Corey Durdin have had really good [pre-seasons] and their ability to take their game to the next level over the summer has been really good,” he said.
As for his own training, McKay hasn’t changed things up too much, making some "little tinkers" but still sticking to his combination of drop punts and snaps when lining up for goal.
While he and his teammates have been hard at work against one another so far this pre-season, McKay is ready to compete against external opposition and put the team's hard work to the test.
“I’ve made a few small changes - probably more the 40 metres-plus versus inside 40 - on whether I’ll snap or drop punt,” he said.
“[As a team], we haven’t done a major overhaul of anything, every team makes little tweaks. You make tweaks as the season goes and the trends come up over the year.
“I think if we can get a bit better in every area of our game, we’ll find ourselves improving every game – everyone is really excited to face some opposition and for the games to start.”
One thing that McKay hasn’t been thinking about is the potential of lining up against his brother Ben in Round 4 when Carlton takes on North Melbourne on Good Friday.
The twin brothers have famously never played against each other at the AFL level, despite being in the system for seven years.
But McKay isn't going to get ahead of himself.
“I’ve learnt that if I build it up in my head that I’m going to play against my brother, it won’t happen,” he laughed.
“In my mind, Ben will be out, so I’m not getting too excited!
"Now that it’s on a bit of a stage with Good Friday, it’ll be a bigger game: maybe this year, but I’m not holding my breath.”
