Demons' players excited by young guns
Melbourne midfielder Cale Morton says the Demons players are excited as the fans about watching the AFL's top two draft picks strut their stuff for the first time against Fremantle on Sunday.
Morton said No.1 draftee Tom Scully and No.2 Jack Trengove had shown good signs from the time they were recruited in November and seemed well prepared for their Subiaco NAB Cup debuts.
"They're good kids, we know they can handle the pressure, as they did last year around the time of the draft," Morton said.
"The only advice is to go about your business as usual and how you played every game as a junior, it's not different.
"Get out there, the game's a bit quicker, but I think they're up to it, they've trained well this pre-season and everyone's excited to see how they go, players included."
Morton said the club's opening pre-season clash would give a good early indication of what the Demons believed would be much improved form from last year's wooden spoon season.
"We're all very excited to get out there, we started pre-season on October 12, it's been a long pre-season, but we feel like we've come a long way," he said.
"We're excited to get out there and see how much we've improved.
Coach Dean Bailey said the key aspect to Melbourne climbing up the ladder this season would be improved kicking, a strong focus of their pre-season training.
"Teams are going to zone a lot more this year and the ability to kick the football through a zone, our ability to hit targets, is going to determine how far we go and whether we're in the games or not," Bailey said.
"Our challenge this year is we've got to actually win more quarters of footy - we only won about 32 I think it was last year which is just not enough.
"We've got to be in games more. The first halves are going to be really important for us.
"You build confidence by being in the game longer and we need to do that and if we can do that then we give ourselves a chance."
Bailey said while there was a lot of focus on the club's many youngsters, senior players James McDonald, Aaron Davey, Colin Sylvia, Brent Moloney and Jared Rivers had also shown signs of improvement over the summer.
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