It has been a sight for sore eyes seeing Josh Kennedy involved in pre-season training and West Coast coach Adam Simpson has no plans to hold his star forward back anytime soon.
Kennedy and marquee ruckman Nic Naitanui turned heads in the brief pre-Christmas period after spending large chunks of time in rehabilitation in recent years.
Naitanui avoided surgery on his ankle late last season and has been getting stuck in so far this summer.
Kennedy has undergone ankle and shoulder operations during the past two off-seasons, restricting his preparations.
The 32-year-old still managed to play 36 games and boot 92 goals in 2018 and ’19, and like Naitanui remains vital to the Eagles’ ambitions heading towards 2020.
“Both those players have missed pre-seasons for probably three or four years in a row,” Simpson said.
“’JK’ has been the one who has just managed to get up for the start of the season and perhaps he’s not (been) physically as prepared as he would have been in previous years – and plus he’s getting older as well.
“To suggest that we need to manage his minutes at the moment is not right, we need to get some minutes into him because he’s missed out a lot.
“The management will come in-season and how we get through another year, but at the moment we just love seeing him on the track and running around.
“He’s pulling up well, and so is Nic, so those two guys are really important for us next year.”
Simpson was confident two other crucial players in the team’s ‘spine’ – key defenders Jeremy McGovern (Achilles) and Tom Barrass (foot) - would be back training in early February following recent operations.
“They will miss a bit of pre-season, they will miss that first month of January, which is important, so they’ll be playing a bit of catch-up but we anticipate they will be playing round one,” Simpson said.
West Coast is due back at training on January 6 as pre-season ramps up towards the Marsh Community Series and the season-opener.
Before the break, the Eagles spent a week in WA’s south-west training in warm conditions and strengthening bonds between the squad – which has added boom recruit Tim Kelly and four draftees since last season.
“This year (was) a bit different because we’ve got the community camp as well, which has been excellent for the club and hopefully for the community,” Simpson said.
“The focus I suppose is just an opportunity to get to know each other a bit more, get a bit deeper with our connections with our players and coaches.
“We put them into different types of groups, and the older guys got to connect with the younger guys, and we trained really well as well.
“It was a really good camp.”
