GIANTS midfielder Tomas Bugg has won the club’s first 3km time trial of the 2014 pre-season in warm conditions at Sydney Olympic Park.
Bugg broke away from the field on the final lap to be the first across the finish line in 10m04s.
The 20-year old led home a strong group including Adam Tomlinson, Toby Greene, Tim Golds, Nick Haynes and Stephen Coniglio.
Bugg said he was happy with his first up time. “Yeah it’s not a bad time, I beat the time I was meant to come back at so I was pretty happy with that,” he said.
“I think we’ve come back in good nick and I think a lot of the boys have beaten the times they were meant to come back in so that’s a good start for the pre-season.
“We’ve just got to build on this now. Our big focus was to increase our fitness so we can run out games so I think we’re on target for that."
Head of Sports Science John Quinn was also impressed with how the first to fourth year players completed the 3km test.
“We’re really happy with how they’ve come back and to be quite honest this is the best they’ve come back, and that’s what we expected,” said Quinn.
“In fact we demanded they came back the best (they have done) as this is the third year we’ve been in the AFL as a club and this is the year we’d expect our players to start stepping up to the standards we’d expect.
“It’s a lengthy process, it’s a process that requires lots of patience but we think they’re on the right track. Compared to say a year ago, performances are right up,” he said.
Quinn said Saturday’s results gave the GIANTS conditioning staff a good idea of what players are capable of.
“It certainly gives us a great idea of what his (Bugg’s) aerobic power is and then we can build on that in all sorts of other areas. To be quite honest, it’s the sort of standard we’d expect from our on-ballers.
“A team is only going to win games as a collective unit and just seeing them all work together and understanding the importance of this sort of test, it was very good to see.
“For them to then come home in about 10 minutes is a terrific result for us,” said Quinn.
The first to fourth year players have been back into pre-season training for almost a week, and the rest of the squad will resume training on Monday November 18.
Top five results – 3km time trial:
1. Tomas Bugg – 10m04s
2. Adam Tomlinson
3. Toby Greene
4. Tim Golds
5. Nick Haynes
