ASSISTANT coach Brent Stanton is next up with the pre-season report cards, casting his eye over some midfield speed which has come to the fore over the pre-season.

If you missed John Barker's report on a selection of Carlton's inside midfielders, click here. 

2. Paddy Dow

Paddy has come back strong and determined to really take his game to another level. He’s a flashy player with a lot of speed and power, but he wants to get that consistency in his game and that comes through his ability to perform at his highest day in and day out at the football club.

He has worked really hard on his endurance over the break as well as his skills: he’s very passionate about his football and wants to become an elite player. They’re the areas we identified as a coaching group and himself together that we could improve and he’s definitely done that. We’re seeing flashes of very classy attributes in his game at the moment.

He’s been good ever since the opening day of pre-season after what was a bit of an injury interruption for him last year, which was disappointing. He’s going really well now.

3. Marc Murphy

‘Murph’ has adapted to a different role, he’s playing more as a forward this pre-season and he’s going really well. It looks like his body is holding up a lot better than it might have previously without being hit around all the time in stoppages.

His leadership has just been outstanding. He’s been taking the small forwards under his wing and taking them on the journey of what he knows and teaching them each day, it’s been great to watch. I’m learning off him and he’s still playing the game: with all of his experience and talent, I think he can offer something really valuable for us playing up forward.

4. Lochie O’Brien

Lochie has gone back to his strength: he wanted to get a little bit bigger last year and he’s certainly stronger over the ball, but we’ve said over the break - and to his credit, he said to us - to get back to the running machine that he is. We’re seeing that right now.

Some of his training standards have been first class and we’re really happy with where he’s at. We know his booming left foot is also a threat for him and he’s shown some massive growth, even though he hasn’t played as many games as what he would’ve liked. We felt it was a good foundation year for him to establish where he wants to go in his career and he’s certainly followed on from last season into pre-season.

We’re happy we’ve got a lot of competition for spots as a coaching group, but it’s certainly going to be a tough decision come game time in regards to who plays where.

28. David Cuningham

David is one of those athletes that’s a bit similar, we’ve seen a fair bit of growth over the pre-season in his game. As we’ve seen, he’s got most attributes an elite footballer would want: his speed, his power and his skills. He’s still got areas of his game that we’ve asked him to keep growing and he’s definitely doing that.

Whether he plays forward or midfield is still the question. Wherever he plays, it’s still going to be a mix as we believe we’ve got a lot of depth in that area now: we’ve got the luxury of not having to play the same people in there all the time. If we can get him in there for bursts or little hits, that’s exciting for us.

46. Matthew Cottrell

Matty is an elite runner so that definitely helps in the pre-season. His ability to work and adapt has stood out — he got thrown around a bit last year from half back to wing. We saw he was able to have an impact in a few games at AFL level and that’s only going to give him more confidence to keep going.

He’s a determined little fella that wants to get better all the time, so his ability to keep seeking that feedback from coaches has been impressive throughout pre-season. He’s been dominating the running. He still has been thrown around in a few areas of the ground because of the depth in spots that are available, he’s going to play in different spots.