With pre-season now underway for the entire playing group, Richmond’s new Physical Performance Manager Luke Meehan provides an overview on the pre-season ahead, as well as an injury update.  

Settling into the new role

"I've really enjoyed the responsibility and all the work that comes with it. I've obviously got big shoes to fill with Peter Burge delivering a great program for the last 10 years, and I'm going to work my hardest to keep delivering a good program."

Standout first-to-fourth-year players after a few weeks back 

"I'm going to be quite cliché here and say the whole group has been really impressive. They've showed up with a great attitude in great shape and they've really shown that they want to either consolidate their spots in the team or push up and get into the team and it's been really great to work with them. I'd say the coaches would say the same thing."

Recruits Tim Taranto and Jacob Hopper's welcome to Tigerland

"They've been unreal since the day they walked in. They both showed up here early before they had to, they're really professional in the way they go about it, and they really want to work hard and impress their coaches and their teammates."

Strong performers in the senior players' time-trial upon their return on Monday

"The whole group again, which is actually true. As a whole, they performed incredibly well and definitely showed there's plenty of fight left in the group and they want to achieve more. I couldn't have been more impressed, to be honest. It was tough conditions and they were all really good."

Pre-season focus ahead of the Christmas break

"There's a number of things. One thing in particular is looking to build our work-rate capacity and aerobic work while we build up our skills time and set ourselves up for a really big January period. At the end of January we'll go on our annual camp and we'll be doing some pretty big training days and getting ourselves ready for February and practice matches, and Round 1 ultimately."

Draftees' introduction to the AFL system

"They're obviously going through a lot of change, having moved interstate a lot of them. So for us, it's just introducing them to the program slowly but surely, making sure they know what they're doing and where they have to be and all those sorts of things, and just being really smart with their workloads to set them up for increased work in January and February looking towards games."

Dylan Grimes hamstring update

"He's been really good. He returned on Monday and he's in great shape. He's already joining in on skills and we're looking to have a really healthy Dylan next year, everything's been positive so far."

Soldo progression from wrist surgery

"He's going really well. He's already joining in on non-contact skills and is looking to be really fit and ready to be in full training in January."

Jack Graham's toe surgery

"Jack's a victim of his own toughness. He battled all year with his toe issue and got to the end of the season and we gave it a rest in the hope that it would improve. We found out at the start of November that things weren't improving and we needed an intervention, and so he had some surgery. That's gone really well from all reports, he's already out of the moon boot and he'll look to start running in January and he'll have a big January/February looking to build into games at the start of the season."

Sam Banks' return from hip surgery 

"He's going really well, he's already back into almost full training. There's no issues there and it's good to have a fit Sam around the Club."