By Simon White 1:04 PM
Sun 09 December, 2007
EVEN WITH two club champion podium finishes, more than 50 AFL games and an All-Australian short-listing under his belt, Lions star Jed Adcock has just one major aim in the months to come - to get through the pre-season unscathed.
Adcock was dogged by bad luck in his first three pre-seasons at the Gabba, being struck by glandular fever in the summer of 2003-04 and then being restricted by back trouble (04-05) and osteitis pubis (05/06).
The lead-in to the 2007 campaign marked the first full pre-season of his highly promising career – somewhat ironically after a 2006 that was interrupted twice by a recurring quad injury.
"I don't think I really realised until last year how much a full pre-season helps," Adcock told lions.com.au.
"My first few pre-seasons didn't go how I would have liked and last year is the only time so far that I have been able to do everything.
"By doing a full-preseason you build up a base that lets you take a lot of fitness into the actual season. You are also a lot more confident.
"The main thing I want to do at the moment is just stay out on the park."
The benefits of a full pre-season were on display for all to see in a career-best 2007, during which Adcock finished runner-up in the Merrett-Murray Medal and made a full-time move into the midfield.
Playing all 22 matches, he averaged more than 20 possessions per game, was named the Lions' most effective tackler and got forward to kick 10 goals, including three against Carlton in Round 16.
"One of the things for me is to keep building my endurance," Adcock said.
"My endurance was at a pretty good standard last year but I know it can go up another few levels and I'll be working towards that.
"As a midfielder it's obviously crucial that you are able to keep on running throughout a game."
The need to kick on next year from a promising second half of 2007 has been a consistent message from the Lions playing group in recent times.
Adcock, who was part of the club's recent leadership camp, is another who believes the Lions' time to shine is now.
"It's a pretty exciting time for us at the moment and probably the perfect opportunity for us to play finals footy," he said.
"If you look at the second half of last year, we played some really good football and showed we can beat pretty much any side in the competition when we are on top of our game.
"That should give us a lot of confidence going into next season.
"I think a lot of people would say that we're an up-and-coming young side but we need to get away from that because we're not a young team any more - most of us who have been playing senior footy have played around 50 games at least."
Away from the training track, Adcock has been helping newcomers and housemates Travis Johnstone and James Polkinghorne acclimatise to life in Brisbane.
The pair have followed in the footsteps of Matthew Tyler, who lodged with Adock last year.
"I guess in some ways it might be even harder for Travis to come up here at 27 than it is for James at 18 because you do tend to become pretty settled and he'd been at Melbourne for a lot of years," Adcock said.
"I'm just trying to help them both feel as welcome as possible up here.
"I remember I stayed with Tim Notting for a couple of months when I got to the club and he did the same for me."
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