West eyes big pre-season

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Emerging talent Rhylee West has his sights set on a big pre-season after an injury-interrupted 2020.

The 20-year-old midfielder-forward battled a knee injury early in the year, before a persistent groin injury saw his season cut short.

But between that was another taste of senior football, with four promising games at AFL level around some strong scratch match performances.

West was one of a number of Bulldogs to set a new PB with his pre-season running test and is hopeful he can keep putting in the work the next couple of months to set himself up for a strong third year in red, white and blue.

“I had the groin injury at the end of last year, but I’ve worked with the medical team to manage that pretty well. I’m back into pretty much full training which is good and getting some kilometres under my belt,” he told westernbulldogs.com.au.

“I tried to focus on my diet and my training routine over the off-season, which I guess helped me come back in better shape than I have the last couple of years.

“I’m setting weekly goals – what I want to do from our first main training on a Monday to the last main training on a Friday. There’s little things you always want to improve on, or weights sessions you want to push hard in.

“Everyone’s goal is to play round one, and that’s my goal.”

The Bulldogs had a taste of match simulation for the first time this pre-season on Monday, with West spending time alongside Marcus Bontempelli and Josh Dunkley in the midfield.

He’s spending time this pre-season developing both his forward and midfield craft.

“It’s a lot of fun playing against your teammates,” West said.

“We’ve got some of the best players in the league in our team, so it’s great to be able to learn from them.

“We’ve got a lot of good midfielders in our team, and recruiting Adam Treloar as well, he’s one of the top midfielders in the AFL.”