The GWS GIANTS have hit the training track for the first time in 2012 with a lengthy session under the hot summer sun at Gipps Road Oval.

The GIANTS are just five weeks away from the NAB Cup First Round clash with the Western Bulldogs and Collingwood and are working hard to ensure they are ready for the opening bounce of the season.

GIANTS Head Coach, Kevin Sheedy was pleased with the day’s session, despite the players having just returned from their Christmas Holidays.

"Today they trained well over two hours, and I thought for the first hour they really hit the wall and they worked through pretty well after that," he said.

"Expecting people to get off planes and get to training and for it to be the best training run, I don’t think that is possible, but I thought in the end they had a good training session and it got better as it went longer, and we have some testing to come up in the next few days so we don’t need to flatten them too hard."

Sheedy stressed the importance of the next few weeks, as the GIANTS build for the first round of the NAB Cup and the club’s historic Round One match on March 24^th against local rivals, the Sydney Swans at ANZ Stadium.

"This period is crucial, we have eighteen boys away doing their AFLPA Induction program so we only have 32 players on the track, and we have five weeks until we play Collingwood in the NAB Cup, so we have a really tight schedule".

Sheedy said the players have developed incredibly and were a long way ahead of where they were 12 months ago.

"I am glad we played in the NAB Cup last year because it gave all the younger players who were seventeen and a half years of age the opportunity to go and play on different sort of players at top class level.

"They were coming from a TAC Cup type competition, so being out their against elite AFL footballers was really important for us, I think they have more of an understanding about what the NAB Cup is about because they played last year and a lot of those boys will play in the NAB Cup this season, and that twelve months has gone very quick".

"We are working at on our understanding and training and education of game plans and we have different rotations, we could rotate five players last season, but this year we can only rotate three, so bench rotations will become very important"

"We are also working on our skill level and opportunity to get the ball into our forward half is important for a young team, because obviously we will be playing against better sides each week that have been there for a long time, some who have been there for one hundred years, whilst we are yet to be there for one hundred minutes"

Sheedy hailed the impressive performances of Callan Ward, Jeremy Cameron, Andrew Phillips, Curtly Hampton and Nathan Wilson, with Sheedy saying, "They all have a bit of quality, class and toughness about them and they are all starting to do some good things on the training track".

Sheedy also highlighted the role the veteran’s players are playing, despite them being on a reduced workload. "We are trying not to push them too hard too early, so they only do about 80% of the training at the moment and they will be spaced and placed accordingly to their body wear and tear over the year. Some have never had an operations, whilst others have had three or fours. So it’s up to the individual.