MELBOURNE coach Dean Bailey says his players have returned to the club in better physical condition than he expected as the Demons start their 2009 pre-season campaign.

But Bailey said the threat of punishing players was still there if they dropped their physical standards.

"We had a fitness test last week and they've come back in good condition – better than average and better than where we hoped," Bailey said at the Junction Oval on Monday.

"But they've got to understand that they've got to come back in good nick.

"To the credit of the 22-odd blokes who went through the fitness tests last week, they're in better than average form in terms of the times they did. They had their first weights session this morning and they're in good shape, so that's always good."

Bailey said a Melbourne innovations committee overhauled its pre-season training, which meant starting training much earlier.

Bailey said the players were "pretty happy" to receive days in lieu and three or four day periods off for training earlier.

"They looked at the program and we asked for their feedback on the problems with pre-season and the things that they found difficult. Travel time was hard because we were training at Trinity and then back to the [Junction Oval] for a session.

"Then we had to cram a 12 or 13-week program into an eight-week program last year and they just felt like they were on a roller-coaster ride all the time. They didn't have enough time to recover and allow their body to produce a good training session the next session."

Bailey said the pre-season program was designed to help – "not flog" – the players.

"We listened to the players and we said: 'This is a program we think will help you and helps us and it's also a better way to do a pre-season'," he said.

"There is going to be time off for them during the break and we make sure they get their holidays. It was actually a pretty well rounded discussion with the players.

"It seemed to go reasonably well and we listened to what they had to say and hopefully we've ticked off all of the negatives in the previous pre-seasons they've had."

Bailey said the fact Melbourne will soon be able to train on a ground with goalposts over the summer – at Casey Fields – is significant.

"It's a big step forward. About 13 other clubs would be saying: 'We've had a ground for 20 years to train on'. It's an important aspect for us to have a football ground with goalposts with nets behind and we'll get that in November," he said.

"That's the important part of Casey for me."

Bailey said it was all systems go for 2009.

"I'm not worried about last year to be honest, we're looking forward to this year," he said.

"We were uncompetitive and not fit enough last year and we've got a chance to rectify those two things.

"We had 16 players on modified [programs] on 20 December last year … we've got about six blokes on modified, so we're a little bit ahead of last year."