After breaking his leg and missing 14 games last season, Jarryn Geary has stepped it up a notch this year to become an automatic selection in the seniors.
With a full pre-season under his belt going into the 2012 season, the small defender believes the confidence he felt has helped him improve this year.
The coaches shared Geary’s thoughts, ensuring he inked a new deal signing him to the club until the end of 2014 in July.
“Last year I broke my leg so I didn’t play much footy. I missed 14 weeks so I had a full pre-season this year and probably went in with a lot more confidence,” Geary said on Wednesday morning.
“Having a full pre-season and playing all the NAB Cup games I think helped and with a new coach and new coaching staff I thought I needed to really step it up and show them what I was capable of.”
“That probably just helped me focus on being able to achieve a spot in the team which I’ve done more consistently this year than previous years.”
Whilst finals are almost out of reach for the Saints, Geary ensured that the vibe around the club is still positive and the team is focusing on improving.
“Obviously a lot of things have to go right for us to make the finals so I think we’re just going to concentrate on trying to improve this week and the rest of the games and give ourselves a bit of a platform going into next year.”
“The place around here is still pretty exciting. We’ve got two games to improve and we’ve got a lot of young players in the team so every week everyone’s got to put their hand up to improve and then hopefully that will lead onto next year and into the pre-season.”
The Saints take on Greater Western Sydney on Saturday afternoon, and the 24 year old said they need to make sure they match the first year club’s eagerness for the four points.
“We’ve seen what they’re capable of and obviously they’re a young side with plenty of enthusiasm.”
“What we’ve seen is their hunger for the contest and they’re going to give a great effort so we’ve got to come out and really match that and if we don’t we’re going to be on the back foot and they’ll embarrass us.”
