Dion Prestia is ready to go for 2020Chris Cavanagh
Herald Sun
15 February 2020Prestia’s availability ... is good news for Tigers fans, given the 27-year-old has spent a fair portion of pre-season in the club’s rehabilitation group.
Prestia produced his remarkable 2019 season and won his first Jack Dyer Medal despite battling an achilles issue in the second half of the year.
Fighting through the injury, he managed to play all 25 games and averaged a career-high 27.4 disposals, along with 4.9 inside-50s, 6.5 score involvements and 4.9 tackles.
“I haven’t been with the main group for the entire pre-season because I carried achilles soreness throughout most of the back end of last year,” he said.
“We pushed my program back a bit more to give me more time off after the season finished and it’s been more of a slow build-up for me.”
Prestia has ramped up his program in the past few weeks, joining the gruelling pre-season camp on the Gold Coast.
“The humidity and the heat was absolutely terrible,” he said.
Like 14 current teammates, Prestia played in a second premiership in three years for the Tigers last year.
But he is hungry for more and has seen enough over summer to suggest the rest of the playing group is, too.
“In training, even just the last few weeks, our defence is so good and in-your-face,” Prestia said.
The term “dynasty” has been thrown around in the conversation about Richmond since Hardwick’s side crushed Greater Western Sydney by 89 points on Grand Final day.
Former Brisbane Lions coach Leigh Matthews, who led the Lions to a three-peat of flags from 2001-03, says a dynasty requires three premierships in “a relatively confined period of time”.
“You look at dynasties and think about Brisbane when Leigh (Matthews) was coaching them and Hawthorn of the early 2010s,” Prestia said.
“We’re so lucky to have been able to play in one premiership, let alone two. If we can get another one it would be absolutely amazing.”
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/teams/richmond/dion-prestia-is-ready-to-go-for-2020-and-wants-to-play-in-state-of-origin-game/news-story/48cdfa592d913e2c5af520584185d003
