“The hardest thing to do during pre-season is just to turn up but once the players are here they have to commit for the two hours they are on the track,” he said. “During the season it will be about not backing away no matter what is thrown in front of us.”

The side will need to cover the loss of key players Ben Miller and Lachie Watts but have recruited heavily in the off-season.

McKinnon said he thought the side’s depth would be a source of improvement.

“We’ve obviously brought in a couple of handy footballers who will bring more confidence to the group,” he said. “They will also add something in terms of being the right personnel to develop our young players because it means they won’t be thrown to the wolves as much.”

Incoming assistant coach Jaye Macumber  will also be a big boost for McKinnon off the bench.

“Having the right structures off the field with Jaye and new under-17 coach Terry Reid will help,” he said. “The integration between the junior football club and the senior football club is pretty close so I expect we’ll have improvement just by having the right people in place.

“On the field leaders like Jackson O’Neill and Jayden Lehmann have really been hitting the gym hard, have bulked up and are also looking good.”

Are there any young players who you think are ready to take a big step up?

It’s hard to know with young players until you start playing. They can be training well and putting in all the hard work but in game situations the pressure comes on and things can get a bit tougher. We do have a couple of younger kids who will get some time but there probably won’t be as many as in the past just because of the depth we’ve recruited.

Will the way you play change much?

When you have a change over in personnel your style of football change a fair bit. It’s no secret that we’ll try to get it in as deeply and as quickly as we can – it’ll be straight down the guts to try and give us opportunities at goal.

What are key areas that you will be looking to for improvement?

Just defensive pressure – last year we scored against pretty easily. It will be about having the right blokes int he right positions, having leadership off the bench to get the match up correct and being able to isolate our better players to do more damage on our scoreboard. If we limit the opposition scoring and create a few more of our own – if it’s a goal more that we kick and a goal less they kick it will all help.