Chris Cavanagh,
Herald Sun
December 11, 2017 4:56pmRICHMOND forward Jason Castagna says the feeling at pre-season training has not been dissimilar to last year despite the Tigers returning to the track as reigning premiers.
The 21-year-old, who last month signed a new two-year contract, was wheeled out in his new No. 11 today, having given up the No. 46 he wore in Richmond’s drought-breaking premiership win in September.
The new jumper Castagna was wearing included a gold AFL logo on the front, spruiking the Tigers as the 2017 premiers.
But Castagna said the feeling around the club had been very much “normal” in recent weeks.
“We soaked it all up. We celebrated as we should. But it’s a new pre-season, a new year coming up. So we’re focusing on next year,” he said.
“I can’t say it is (different to last year), really. We’re just training hard and enjoying each other’s company and we’re having a bit of fun out there so it’s been kind of normal.”
Originally recruited as a running defender, Castagna was a key cog in the Tigers’ high-pressure forward line this year.
His confidence grew as the season wore on but improving his goalkicking is still a key focus area heading into next season after finishing 2017 with 26 goals at a scoring accuracy of 42 per cent.
“I’m just going to keep building my game around pressure and helping those guys out up the field,” Castagna said.
“I’ll work on my scoring accuracy and goalkicking but pretty similar focus to last year really.
“Personally I hope I can hold my spot and keep playing the role I did this year but we’ve picked up a couple of other small forwards (in the draft) and they’ve been training well so there’s competition for spots.”
Source: Herald-Sun website-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Butler also said there may be some tweaks made to the Tigers' much-lauded high-pressure small forward line. The pressure provided by Butler, Castagna and Daniel Rioli was considered crucial to Richmond's premiership-winning season.
"The game is always changing," Butler said. "We are going to practice different things over the pre-season that we can hopefully implement in the game plan next year that might be able to change things up ... there are a few big boys putting their hand up to play alongside Jack [Riewoldt].
"These new young boys are all pretty decent and can play footy so we have got to keep on our toes a bit."
Source: The Age website
