FRESH PLAYING GROUP AND SUPPORT STAFF THRIVE ON NEW PRE-SEASON APPROACH

WEST Perth took a leap of faith to start official pre-season training a little later in build-up for the 2015 WAFL season largely in order to keep the support staff fresh, and coach Bill Monaghan sees no reason to think it won't pay off.

Official pre-season training didn’t start for the whole West Perth senior group until late November in comparison to the customary late October or early November beginning.

However, that doesn’t mean the players were given the green light to not do any hard work during that period away from the club or that the same amount of work hasn’t still been put in.

The Falcons' coaching staff put faith in the playing group that they would follow their individual pre-season training programs put together by strength and conditioning coach Craig Soley until the group came together.

The players then arrived back at HBF Arena in late November in as good a shape as they would be had they been there the whole time, so the same amount of running, fitness and strength work was completed by the players.

The great benefit of the approach was to relieve some of the pressure and expectations on the club's support staff and volunteer group.

It gave them all an extra month where they weren’t required to attend training sessions three nights a week and given the commitment is usually 11 months of the year, having that extra month away from the club is something that everyone at West Perth thinks will be beneficial.

Monaghan had the faith in the playing group that they could be trusted to put in the work even if not asked to come into the club three nights a week throughout November, but he sees no reason to think it won't have some long-term benefits.

"It was a bit of a leap of faith going with the shorter period before Christmas and whilst on face value that looks like we were a couple of weeks behind where other clubs might have been, the players were given some fairly clear instructions as to what we expected from them," Monaghan said.

"It was more about them not being bound to be here from 5.30 until 8 o'clock three nights a week, but they had to do the work elsewhere. Long-term we think it will be good but until the whole thing has played out, it is still an unknown as to exactly how it will look.

"We are comfortable that we are meeting our expectations from a physical sense right now coming into the season so it seems like it has been worth doing. The players and the staff seem relaxed and comfortable with where we are at, but now we'll see where we sit with our fitness."