North Melbourne rookie Majak Daw is the AFL’s first Sudanese-born player. This is Majak’s exclusive fortnightly blog written for those interested in the Kangaroos and The Huddle, the club's remarkable community education centre. Majak will also touch on his childhood in Sudan, as well as the contrast between his Sudanese culture and his new home Australia.

I have been dealing with a minor knee injury of late, which will have a slight impact on my pre-season training. I’ve been told by the fitness coaches that it shouldn’t set me back too much which is great because I’m running better than ever. Over my short career, I have struggled with my running but going to Utah two times now has taken everything to a new level. Hopefully I’ll be able to run for four quarters at a pretty high intensity next year and beyond.

So basically I had an arthroscope on my knee on Thursday night to clean out any waste that’s lurking or floating around in there. I injured my PCL during the year and then hurt it again at training recently. I’m told I’ll be back doing weights and running again next week which is a great result.

Personally, I think it’s a really good opportunity to focus on my rehab program and fine tune my core strength as well as work hard in the gym. When we get back from our Christmas break, I’ll be fit and ready to resume full training.

It’s well over a month since we got back from our training camp in Utah and we’ve had the addition of two new players in Brad McKenzie and Tom Curran. Brad was taken with pick 18 from South Australia and has had to relocate to Victoria. Tom taken with pick 40 is from Victoria and his Dad played for Hawthorn.

When they arrived, it reminded me of when I first came to the club and how daunting the first couple of days were. You have to go around and introduce yourself to everyone and try to remember their names. It’s not an easy task coming into a completely unfamiliar environment but so far the boys have enjoyed their first couple of weeks as professional footballers.

One big noticeable difference from Utah and Melbourne has been the weather. It was absolutely freezing and snowing in Utah and twice as cold as a Melbourne winter. So for me, it’s great to be training in the sunshine - it’s so much more enjoyable.

On a more personal level there have been plenty of changes in my life this past month. My father William recently left for Sudan and will be there for the next two months looking at a job offer from the government. I know many of you may think he’d be better off working in Australia, but his qualifications are more suited to Sudan. With my father leaving, it’s left quite a big void. There are nine kids in our family which takes two parents to share the work load. I haven’t questioned how my mother will cope because I know how resilient she is. I know she’s faced much bigger challenges in her life. I’ll just have to do my part and help support her as much as I can.