Following an extremely impressive finish to season 2007, Sean Rusling is excited to be back in training and 100 per cent fit after so many injury frustrations during his short career.
The 21-year-old gave Magpie fans a glimpse of his prodigious talent in five senior appearances, including the three finals, at the end of 2007, but having never been fully fit at the beginning of a pre-season, he is excited to be back and 100 per cent fit after eight weeks off.
“It’s good to be back,” Rusling told CTV after training at the Lexus Centre on Wednesday.
“Every other pre-season I’ve gone into I’ve had a few niggles or things I’ve needed to look after.
“But I’m 100 per cent fit now, so it’s pretty exciting to be able to get out there and train 100 per cent of the time with the boys, instead of missing the odd session here and there, I can actually go for it.”
After enduring a difficult 2007 which was taken up mostly by rehabilitation from a pre-season shoulder reconstruction, Rusling said he was feeling great and didn’t want the season to end when it did, although he still managed to enjoy his off-season break immensely.
“When we finished it felt like it was round seven for me, so I was definitely ready to keep going.
“But at the same time it’s nice to get a break. I hadn’t been playing, it had been a pretty long rehab for the reconstruction in late January, so it’s been a long rehab, so I definitely wanted to keep playing, but that’s the way it goes, but (I have) a bit of momentum going into this pre-season."
He clocked up plenty of frequent flier points in the off-season.
“First of all I went up to North Queensland for about three weeks, a bit of a boat around the Whitsundays and up to Airlie Beach, so that was all very stressful for me," he said laughing.
“Then I went back to Adelaide for a couple of weeks, then back here for the racing carnival. It was good, I had a lucky one too, so it was good fun.
Now the focus is fully back on having a big pre-season, capitalising on being injury free, and adding plenty more games to his three-year career tally of 16.
“I think the main thing I’ve got to do (during the pre-season) is get my endurance up. Because I’ve had patchy pre-seasons and patchy seasons in the past, I’ve never really had the chance to get myself fully fit, so that’s my main goal for this pre-season.
“In terms of playing, I want to play 22 games in the seniors. I don’t want to miss any games through injuries or anything like that. Yeah, that’s the aim this year.”