New recruit Eddie Betts is already finding his voice at Adelaide, according to Crows and former Carlton teammate Sam Jacobs.

Betts, 26, joined the Club as a Free Agent in October. The two-time Blues leading goalkicker and All-Australian nominee was afforded extra leave because of his involvement in the International Rules Series, but sought permission from the AFL Players Association to being training with his new Club early. He completed his first session as a Crow last Friday.

Jacobs, who spent five years with Betts at Carlton, said the livewire forward was making a good first impression at West Lakes.

“I’ve trained with Eddie in the past … he’s pretty exciting on the track. He’s also quite vocal out there. It’s only his second session and he’s already telling blokes what to do,” Jacobs said on Monday.

“He’s come back in really good nick and it’s been documented how he’s come back early, so he’s excited about the change and the year ahead.”

Adelaide’s other prized offseason recruit, Geelong premiership player James Podsiadly also made an earlier than expected appearance at training last week.

Podsiadly has since returned to Melbourne to complete his university exams, but will be re-join the group next week. Assistant coach Mark Bickley said he was thrilled to add both Podsiadly and Betts to his forward line mix.

“Eddie has lots of dimensions. He has general speed, some aerial skills and that forward pressure that is so important these days. He’s a multi-faceted player that we probably haven’t had firing consistently for us for a couple of years,” Bickley said.

“James Podsiadly will be really important for us. He provides a bit of leadership. Our forward set-up this year was very inexperienced, with a lot of young players in there. James will give great direction and support to those players.

“He also competes really strongly. If he doesn’t mark it, he brings it to ground and gets after the opposition as well.”

The Crows trained for nearly three hours at Max Basheer Reserve on Monday morning.

The session marked the return of the Club’s senior players (5+ years of experience). The more experienced Crows kicked off their pre-season campaign with a five-minute run, which was won by elite endurance athlete Nathan van Berlo.

Jacobs said it was good to have the full playing group back together.

“It’s always going to be tough in pre-season, but it’s exciting to be back around the boys. There are some new faces on the field and also off it,” he said.

“Before training Sando said, ‘we’ve had our time away, but let’s not forget the things we spoke about in the review at the end of the season’ … that’s making sure we’re training with purpose and that everyone is improving in the areas we identified.

“We had a pretty hard review of everyone and we’re looking forward to having another good, hard pre-season. Obviously, there’s going to be a lot of running involved. You’ll see some slimmer boys getting around come game time because that’s the way the game is going now. We’ve got to make sure we’re running our games well.

“It’s been a great, positive start. The coaches are happy with the nick the boys have come back in and there have been some pretty good running results.”

Jacobs said he would aim to use the pre-season to regain “consistency” in his performance.

“I think during the pre-season is where I can get the most improvement … every session making sure I’m getting the most out of it and training with purpose,” he said.

“Last season, wasn’t the season I wanted to have but I learned so much. I think there’s a lot I can take onboard.”

Jacobs was also confident the team could improve on an up-and-down 2013 season.

“We’re very confident in the group we’ve got. We’ve made some changes and we think we’ve improved the list, especially in the forward line,” he said.

“There have been some great additions to the Club, on and off the field, and some exciting players come in. Our membership is up already, so we’re looking forward to getting 60,000 and getting to Adelaide Oval.

“It’s going to be an exciting year in 2014.”

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