Regardless of what level you are playing at, there aren’t too many things more thrilling than putting on the footy gear and running out on the field with your teammates for a new season.

We began preparing for Sunday’s opening round of NAB Cup games on November 7 last year.

That seems like light years ago and I would love to have tracked the kilometres we ran, laps we swam and the tons of weight we lifted in preparation over the summer.

The work doesn’t stop here of course, but our focus shifts toward preparing for and beating an opponent each weekend.

Last weekend, it was a premiership contender in Carlton and a cross-town rival in Port Adelaide.

Pleasingly, we fought out two narrow wins and we’ll take that confidence into this week’s match-up with the much-improved Brisbane Lions in Alice Springs.

The weather forecast doesn’t look kind, so we will pack our floaties and try to continue our preparation for round one of the season proper.

Back to Sunday, though.

Whilst the format of the games can be hard to grasp for some, the ‘mini’ games provide the coaching staff with a great opportunity to give players a chance against AFL level opposition.

You can only compete against your team mates at training for so long before it’s time to unleash some aggression on a foe.

For veterans like Brent Reilly, Michael Doughty, Scott Thompson and Graham Johncock it was just another day at the office.

At the other end of the spectrum were new players from other clubs like myself, Tom Lynch and Lewis Johnston.

For us, it was our first time running onto AAMI Stadium as Crows players, and what a great feeling it was.

Second and third-year players Jarryd Lyons and Sam Shaw also shone in the tri-colours, while recruits Sam Kerridge and Tim McIntyre also got a chance to showcase their skills at the top level.

Anyone in the know will tell you the NAB Cup is a couple of notches below a regular season AFL game, but at this time of the year it’s exactly what all the players are craving.

I have no doubt as we move through the pre-season competition fans will get a chance to see more of our younger talents as well as some players on the mend from injuries, so stay tuned.

With three matches on the weekend, the preparation is vastly different to a normal game.

We were able to play 33 players and as the first team played against Carlton, myself, Johnston, Doughty, Aidan Riley, Kerridge, McIntyre, Shaw, Rory Sloane and Patrick Dangerfield warmed up inside awaiting the Power clash.

The warm-up was the same as usual and everything was pretty normal.
However, it was a very strange feeling walking down to play and seeing a Crows team already out there competing.

I can remember Mick Doughty taking a second to say how strange everything felt - that’s telling you something when a man, who has played in all sorts of conditions and variations in over 200 games feels that way just before a game.

Anyhow, as the boys went in to gather themselves following the win over the Blues, the fresh players did a brief warm-up on the field before again heading in and joining the guys for our final team meeting.

Everything was in order and felt normal again and, as the tight-knit unit we want to become, we ran out on the ground ready to tackle Port Adelaide.

The narrow win was a bonus.

One last thing, not having been outside since arriving to the ground at 2pm, boy did I feel like a clown running onto the ground wearing zinc on my face and having it washed off by rain.

It was not quite the sweltering conditions the AFL or I had expected.

Andy Otten thought it was quite bizarre that I was wearing the bright white zinc in the rain and had a little chuckle at my expense.

As mentioned, this weekend we are up in the Northern Territory which will again be a great experience for the younger players who are fortunate enough to play.

Thanks for reading and as I get going feel free to contact me via the email address joshjenkinscrows@hotmail.com to pose any questions or give any feedback you feel is worthy.

I received some excellent emails this week.

Remember to follow the Crows and myself on Twitter (@Adelaide_FC / @JoshJenkins24) and enjoy the footy this weekend.

Josh #20