FORMER Horsham Demon Seb Ross is gearing up for another big season with the St Kilda Saints.
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Ross is coming off a career-best year that saw him clinch his first senior best and fairest award at the club.
Despite that, Ross said he was still wary of losing his position as a young crop of midfielders come through the club.
“I have the same sort of focus as last year and I’m probably doing a lot of the same things and maybe adding to it along the way,” he said.
“We picked up some young gun midfielders in the draft and some other younger guys such as Luke Dunstan, Blake Acres and Jack Steele are coming up, so I probably will have to play a bit more forward this year.
“I’ll be working on my forward craft a bit more, like a lot of the midfielders have.”
Ross said becoming a more versatile player would be a benefit to the team as a whole.
“Towards the end of last year I played a bit more on the wing,” he said.
“I think it helps you as a footballer if you are able to play a variety of positions. If you get stuck playing one position and someone else is playing better than you, you could be dropped.
“If you are more versatile you’re worth more to the team.”
Ross started back at pre-season training at the end of November and said the feeling around the club had been different, but positive, since veterans Nick Riewoldt and Leigh Montagna have retired.
“It was a little bit different coming back to training without a few of the guys we used to see there, but there is a pretty good and enthusiastic vibe around the club at the moment,” he said.
Ross stepped into the leadership team last year and said he would be looking to continue to grow as a leader this year with Riewoldt and Montagna no longer around the club.
“The beauty of being able to step into a bit of a leadership role last year was preparing us for this year,” he said.
“Leigh and Nick took a bit of a back seat and let a few younger guys flourish into the leadership group last season. It’s not like we’ve come in unknown. I think that we were ready for it as a group.”
Ross said the club’s focus during pre-season would be on improving from last season to give them the best possible chance of making a finals tilt in 2018.
“Finals seem a long way from now – coaches had the whole off-season to work out what areas we wanted to improve in,” he said.
“Pre-season is about improving in those areas and hopefully that’s the process which holds us in good stead in the season, and finals is a product of that.
“The focus now isn’t just on playing finals, it’s more of a focus on what can get us there and winning games.”