SYDNEY Swans are not done yet.
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That’s the message from Wagga’s Harry Cunningham as he and his Swans teammates near the end of another gruelling pre-season.
Cunningham is in Wagga this week as part of the Swans’ AFL Community Camp.
The 22-year-old was as disappointed as anyone with Sydney’s ‘straight sets’ exit from finals last year and is confident the Swans will be a much-improved force in 2016.
“Absolutely, we need to improve anyway,” Cunningham said.
“There’s areas of our game that we’ve looked at in house so we know what we’ve got to do and we’re continually training and continually trying to get better every week, both as individuals and as a team.
“We’re looking forward to the season starting and proving people wrong.”
The return of Lance Franklin has excited many Swans supporters but they still sit on the sixth line of betting for this year’s AFL premiership, with little spruik or fanfare.
Cunningham revealed a different approach to pre-season training has Sydney confident of improvement.
“Obviously getting those players back will help but it’s not just getting those players back that is going to make a difference,” he said.
“We’ve gone into this pre-season with a different format with the running and the skills component.
“Instead of like last year, where we used to do all our running, then all of our skills. This year we’ve sort of mixed and matched, which is more beneficial for game state running.
“It sort of puts your skills under fatigue a bit more. We’ve been trialling that this year and I think it’s working a treat.
“Obviously the interchange cap goes down as well, so if we continue to do what we do, try to improve every week then I reckon we can see some success again this year.”
On a personal level, Cunningham said he hopes to step his game up to a ‘new level’ this year.