SENIOR Coach David Teague joined SEN's Garry Lyon and Tim Watson for an extensive preview of the Club's 2021 campaign. 

In doing so, he answered a number of questions about some key Blues and where they are placed with a fortnight remaining until the AFL season opener at the MCG. 

Here's what Teague had to say about a Blues quintet.

Paddy Dow: I felt he had a really good pre-season last year, so I think it’s an accumulative load of a couple of years. Last year, he had some niggles and injuries and didn’t get out on the park as much as we would’ve loved. This year he’s had a great pre-season. What he did do, and we mentioned this to our players, was that he went away and worked on some areas and was really committed to them: he had conviction in his commitment. Sometimes when you do that, you go backwards for a little bit but right now we’re seeing him come out the other side.

His craft around stoppages and decision-making with the ball in traffic are two of the areas I know he’s worked hard on, and we’re starting to see that. His chemistry with the other guys, we’ve added Jack Martin, David Cuningham has spent more time through there, Zac Williams, Will Setterfield: there are a few guys going through our midfield at the moment. Him understanding how each player works is something that I think has really grown.

Zac Williams: He’s also been quite dangerous in our front half, he keeps hitting the scoreboard in any of our match-play training and in games. He’s very strong, his tackling around the contest has really stood out. His ability to make decisions under pressure is something that you can see he’s played in big games.

He’s played in some games where there’s been some serious heat and our players are understanding that he stays calm in those moments and finds someone to give the ball to. He’s been a great acquisition for us.

Mitch McGovern: He hasn’t been able to get out there as much as we would’ve liked. I know in his first year at the Club he had a really interrupted pre-season and we probably threw him out there too early. We were also the 18th team for kicking it to a one-on-one contest last year and maybe even the year before that: we’ve got to get the ball in there quicker and allow our tall forwards an opportunity one-on-one against their opponents before teams can get their numbers back.

Mitch has had a great pre-season and we’re really looking forward to him making the most of the work he’s done. He’s worked hard. The injuries have been the challenge but like every player, he’s got growth areas and areas he wants to get better at. It’s probably as much about relaxing and playing footy, he’s at his best when he just plays.

There’s probably been a lot of talk about him when he came from Adelaide: when he was there, he was probably the fifth or sixth forward in that team and he came to Carlton as the number one forward. He was handling that expectation and now he’s sharing the load with Harry and Levi Casboult and when Charlie gets up and going. When he’s part of a system, that’s when he plays his best footy.

Liam Stocker: Liam has had a really good pre-season. He got some minutes in our scratch match against Essendon last week. He’s very strong in the contest and his stoppage craft and the work he does around there is quite good. He’s got a little nasty edge to him: he likes to tackle and hit bodies and it’s something we really value as a tough inside midfielder.

Charlie Curnow: You won’t see Charlie in the first half of the season. He’s tracking well and his knee looks really good, but we’re thinking bigger picture with Charlie. We want to get him right. He wants to be out there and he’s so infectious as a person, we’d love to have him out there. We care about Charlie and we want a long career out of him and we still think we can achieve that. We’ll take it slowly and I can’t give you one exact timeframe, it depends on how he progresses. We definitely won’t be rushing him.

It was a de-loading after his last operation, it’s going to be a slow build. It’s to do with his kneecap. The bone right now is strong and now it’s about building the muscles around it, giving it the stability around it. He’s got some really good people around him who have searched across the country and across the world in terms of the best information right now. He’s confident and the Club is confident it’s tracking really nicely. The challenge for us is to not get too excited: we love Charlie as a person and as a player.