GEELONG’S AFL playing list returned to training on Monday and Irishman Zach Tuohy is feeling good ahead of what he is hoping will be a successful 2022 season.
Now entering his 12th AFL campaign, the 32-year-old knows he is approaching the pointy end of his career and wants to make every session count.
“This pre-season has gone better than the previous two or three,” Tuohy told geelongcats.com.au.
“Typically, I take a fair bit of time off at the end of the season and I don’t start running until about now, I have actually been running for a few weeks, for the full offseason actually, so I am feeling pretty good.”
Tuohy’s pre-season shift has coincided with a change to Geelong’s coaching setup and the Irishman has enjoyed working alongside returning Club greats James Kelly, Harry Taylor, Matthew Egan and Shannon Byrnes.
“The Club has been really good at cultivating good personalities, sending them out into the world and then bringing them back even better people again and those guys all fit the bill perfectly."
“I’ve been working pretty closely with Kel in the first few weeks, and he has been awesome and really impressive as a coach to work with, Harry and I played together for a long time, Shannon, I am getting to know… these are all legendary Geelong people who have given a lot to the Club and will give back again.”
Despite being familiar faces, they've already started implementing some fresh ideas.
"I love the stuff Kel is doing. It is a little bit more adventurous in how he wants us to play, and we will try and implement that.”
After a preliminary finals exit in 2021, Tuohy is positive that Geelong can put themselves in contention again despite the usual knockers at this time of year who say Geelong are 'too old and too slow'.
"So, we peaked six years ago and have played in a handful of prelims ever since. It is a bit of a myth to say you need to have a certain age demographic.
"It would be a brave call to write off Danger, Hawk, Joel and these guys off again this year. History tells you at some stage the drop off is coming but we’ve defied that for a decade.
"So by all means don’t consider us a threat, that’s fine by us and we hope every other team feels that way as well."
"I hope people do underestimate us."
