Andrew Carrazzo instinctively touches wood whenever he talks of what’s so far been an injury-free pre-season – his first in four years no less.
And on the eve of Sunday’s practice match against Collingwood in the Blues’ famed former zone of Bendigo, Carrazzo talks with the genuine verve of a kid approaching his very first hit-out in the big time.
“I’d almost forgotten what the feeling was to go into the start of the season fully prepared,” Carrazzo said in a break between training sessions at Ikon Park this week.
“I was only thinking about it the other day – this is the best pre-season I’ve had since 2011 – and it’s exciting in that sense. I feel that I’ve definitely got enough training under my belt to play well.
“I’ve been so happy to get a big block of training in, and Dave Buttifant (Carlton’s High-Performance Manager) has been great in managing my loads really well to ramp it up for the two big sessions a week.
Andrew Carrazzo shares a laugh with fellow veteran Chris Judd. (Photo: AFL Photos)
“I’m feeling really confident physically - hopefully I can get a bit more luck going my way and have a really good year.”
Carrazzo concedes that an achilles tendon injury, which warranted careful management through 2012 and unavoidable surgery the following year, subjected him to a two-year period where training was limited and he prepared for games with some trepidation in terms of whether his body would actually hold up.
“I’ve definitely had a systemic problem following on from achilles surgery,” he said. “I had a few issues for the best part of two years where my running pattern was a bit off and my gait was a bit off, and I was probably compensating to protect it which was not a good space to be in.
“Then last year I was definitely on the end of some bad luck. I’d built up a good base in training, then copped a knee to the ribs against the Bulldogs and missed three weeks with that – and I couldn’t really regain that continuity until later in the year.”
But the good news for the dark Navy Blue faithful is that the bloke in the No.44 is up for the opening round in the countdown to a well-earned game number 200.
