Jamie Macmillan says his first year in the leadership group was a learning experience he hopes to build on in 2016.
Macmillan has joined the club’s crop of younger players in Utah and told NMFC.com.au he was enjoying getting to know North’s future stars more closely, including this year’s draftees.
On Tuesday (Utah time), the players embarked on a 15 kilometre hike which saw them reach heights of almost 10,000 feet (3km) and at the summit, the senior players took part in a Q&A session with the first to fourth year players.
“One of the things Ben Dyer, one of our development coaches, is pretty big on is learning from the older guys and the experiences they’ve had," Macmillan said.
"We’ve got guys like ‘Higgo’ (Shaun Higgins) and ‘Ziebs’ (Jack Ziebell) who have been around the block a fair bit and are pretty senior players now – so they were just passing a few words of wisdom on to the younger guys.
“I suppose you don’t often play a lot during the year with these young guys, so you get to spend a bit of time with them and learn more about them, live with them and it’s good fun as well. I certainly enjoy it.”
Macmillan shared experiences from his own football career during the session, which included those learned as a member of the club's leadership group.
“It’s something I really enjoyed. It was probably two or three years ago I thought I’d love to really get into that position and help out guys where I could. It was a very much a learning year for me,” the 24-year-old said.
“Next year hopefully I’ll be in that same group and take a few steps further and I can develop a bit more.
“I’m certainly also learning off guys even not in the leadership group, like ‘Boomer’ (Brent Harvey). He’s a tremendous leader around the football club.”
The trek to Utah has certainly not been easy, but the number 34 knows how important this time of year is to success in 2016.
“I’ve been sore. You have your six or seven weeks off, and it’s a bit of a shock to the system when you get back in to it, but you can get that gradual transition into training again.
“We’ll get back to Melbourne and train pretty hard, but it’s always good to start pre-season again and the fire burns to get better and go one step further next year.”
For now, Macmillan is looking to turn that short term pain into long term gain.
“You want to get better and iron out a few of the creases that held us back this year. These young guys over here now hopefully they can get better and take the next step and the older guys can also improve – that’s the plan.”
