Mahoney said much of the first week would focus on testing and assessing players.
“Officially, we start training on Monday. But it’s also an introduction into meetings and skills,” he told melbournefc.com.au.
“We set high expectations in terms of how we wanted the players to return and the encouraging signs have been that, over the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen upwards of 20 players working out at the club, which suggests they are doing the program and work that Dave Misson has set them.
“We will have the majority of the squad join us, with a few of the mature age recruits like Chris Dawes and Shannon Byrnes still being on holidays. They’re due to return to training in the next couple of weeks. Mark Jamar is the other one away, on his honeymoon.”
Mahoney said that most of the Demons will start pre-season from day one.
“The positive sign is that the majority of players will be able to do full training from day one, and we’ll still have a couple of players on monitored programs. Only having the one post-season surgery in Jack Fitzpatrick puts us in a good situation going into the pre-season,” he said.
“Our focus for pre-season will be building on last year. There’ll be extra attention placed on contested possession and body work.
“Going back to last pre-season, we had a number of people new to their current roles, so with the benefit of 12 months under their belt, we’re very confident in the pre-season that has been planned.”
