Round 1 is an exciting time, so much possibility for the coming season. After watching the Fremantle West Coast fixture I’m finding it hard to contain my excitement for Thursday. I’m sensing a change in the air and like circling sharks with the scent of blood so is the rest of the tiger army.

Our round 1 fixture against Carlton has not been favourable for the Tigers, however, each year we come a little closer to winning. Last year we lost by 44 points but the game was much closer than reflected in the final score.

After the first quarter we led by 2 points and stretched the lead early in the second. At the half we trailed by 19 points but managed to claw back to within 12 points at three quarter time. Thanks to some Trent Cotchin magic we came within a kick in the final quarter, but alas it was not to be.

We did have some outstanding performances from the usual suspects and some stats in our favour, such as accuracy. 57.1% to 51.4%, which was one of our biggest areas of improvement last season, and with big Ivan as our main ruckman we also won the hitouts 38-26.

Since then we had come closer to the top teams and throughout the season developed winning ways until we were struck by injury and lost some of our best players.

This season marks a new era at tigerland, we have a new Captain, the sensational Trent Cotchin, with Vice Captain Brett Deledio. We have had a spate of changes due to some fantastic recruiting in the off season. The mature age additions of Troy Chaplain, Ricky Petered, Chris Knights and Aaron Edwards, will add real depth if we are hit by injury or suspension.

Carlton on the other hand has had a tumultuous end to last season losing Brett Ratten and learning a new game plan under Mick Malthouse, could see the tigers on the winners list to start the season.

Though Carlton did play the NAB cup final against Brisbane and had an impressive pre-season. This counts for little in the season proper when the competition really heats up and experimentation is over.

So this time around I think we’ll see some real fireworks in the first game of the season. Richmond will come out of the blocks hard but need to maintain the intensity.

 The midfield battle will be interesting, but the main concern for me has been our approach into the forward line and converting our chances. In the pre-season I felt as though we didn’t manage that as well as we could. Hitting up targets in the forward 50 will be paramount and Jack Reiwoldt has to be a little more selfish, he has won two Coleman medals for a reason. That being said this is the year that we will drop the ninth place tag, we are well placed to play finals this year.

On a side note I am really looking forward to seeing some of the young recruits hit the field this season, in particular Nick Vlaustin. This kid is an excitement machine, I was really impressed with his pre-season and hopefully he will get at start in round 1.