FALCONS RARING TO GO FOR PRE-SEASON HIT OUTS

WEST Perth might have deliberately delayed the start of its pre-season again with an eye to a strong finish to 2016 but for coach Bill Monaghan he has still found it has dragged a little and can't wait for the action to get underway.

West Perth trialled a new approach of a start to official pre-season training late in November last season with an eye to not only keep the players from burning out from 11 months of the year at the club, but for the support staff and volunteers to have a little extra time off.

It certainly appeared to work with West Perth earning a reputation as the strongest finishing team in the competition in 2015 and despite a horror fixture of the last eight home and away games, and then four straight finals without a break, the Falcons hung tough making it to the grand final.

On the back of that, Monaghan and the club have seen little reason to change too much in terms of the pre-season program. Official training began a week later but it was actually less time off given the extra three weeks of the season during 2015 because of the finals campaign.

The pre-season has gone off smoothly with West Perth mainlining a relatively stable squad with the notable departures being Ray Bartholomew, Marc Crisp, Jordan Jones and Marcus Adams while Max Duffy and Joel Leeson loom as important arrivals.

West Perth's pre-season schedule begins on Friday February 19 with an intra-club match at HBF Arena starting at 6pm.

The following Saturday will see the Falcons get an early crack at reigning premiers Subiaco at Medibank Stadium before the final official hit out up against Perth at HBF Arena on Saturday March 5.

That match with the Demons will bounce down at 6pm and will double as the Family Fun Day which will begin at 4pm.

The club's season launch, incorporating the corporate classic draw, jumper presentation and player auction, will then take place on Thursday March 10 ahead of the Round 1 clash with South Fremantle under lights at Fremantle Oval on Saturday March 19.

For Monaghan, he is happy with how the pre-season program has gone but now can't wait to see how all that work and planning translates in game scenarios.

"The pre-season has been good even though it still drags out even if we've had two or three weeks less than most of the other clubs. We're now just in that last phase of starting to play some games amongst ourselves and then against opposition," Monaghan said.

"It's getting closer to the fun part which is playing. A lot of the planning, preparation and everything is done and it's about fine tuning game style and tactics that we want to employ during the season. Whilst things will be similar, we have looked at tweaking a couple of little things coming into the season."

Monaghan and everyone involved at the club worked diligently to come up with a program for the playing group they feel will provide the best opportunity of being a contender again in 2016, but ultimately he knows it's up to the attitude of the players to determine if it succeeds or not.

"First of all, we went deep into last season so we gave the players a decent amount of rest, post-season. We trialled last year on the back of a bigger break not starting until the last week of November for a number of reasons – player welfare, their mental and physical rest and also for our volunteers and support staff," Monaghan said.

"This year we decided to push that back a further week given we had a shorter break so we started all back on November 30. The players had a good break away from the footy club but to their credit when they came back we tested them pretty much the first night and they met all the targets we set them and we're happy that they are motivated to improve."