The three-word slogan has been adopted by the Burras coaching staff this pre-season as they look to bulk up their young playing list.
“We’ve changed a lot of things over the pre-season to get the boys a lot stronger and a lot bigger,” coach Brenton Kinnear told NFL.org.au.
“There are a few players who played last year who have done massive pre-season and are up seven or eight kilos.
“We want to get bigger in the body and do things a bit differently and get better as a club.”
St Mary’s has experienced rapid development since joining the Northern Football League senior competition in 2010.
After winning just two games in its debut season, the club has played off in the past two Division 3 finals series but bowed out in the first week of both finals campaign.
Popular belief would tell you that a list so young is still too raw to genuinely contend for a premiership, but Kinnear said there was no limit to the emerging club’s potential in the close future.
“Everyone comes up against St Mary’s and says ‘they’ve got a good group of kids, they’ll be right in a few years time’ Our thoughts are why can’t we be good now? Why do we have to wait a few years time?
“A lot of those players are hitting 23, 24 and 25 and that’s pretty much where you should be your fittest and hitting the prime of your career.”
Without too many experienced campaigners on its list, the St Mary’s committee met at the conclusion of last year’s finals series to work on bringing experience to the group.
Content with the list the club had at its disposal, a decision was made to seek the assistance of veteran footballers who could help out behind the scenes.
According to Kinnear the experienced staffers have been “fantastic” for not only the players, but the club as a whole.
“We’ve done a bit of a ring around and we’ve got a few experienced people just to come down and help out which has been fantastic for us and fantastic for a lot of kids around the group,” he said.
With a policy to develop their own youngsters rather than pay to bring recruits into the club, St Mary’s has been successful in retaining the majority of its playing list over the summer.
A host of talented youngsters will push up from last year’s under-19s preliminary final team and Kinnear expects that to provide greater depth this season.
He also points to the high number of under-17s filtering into the under-19s team as proof that the club’s focus to develop youth is paying dividends.
“Having all of that group still at the club and having roughly 37 to 38 under-19s will provide greater effort to select these under-19s in the senior squad and not leave the under-19s short,” he said.
“That makes a massive difference to our club.”
Despite playing off in last year’s finals series, St Mary’s won only six matches in the 2012 home and away season – six games less than third-placed Reservoir and two less than it achieved in 2011.
However, Kinnear said the gulf between St Mary’s and the competition’s best sides isn’t as wide as last year’s ladder suggests.
“We were very competitive against the upper sides and we honestly believe that we’re a fair dinkum chance of surprising a lot of those sides through the year,” he said.
“We lost a lot of close games. We got beaten by Mernda by nine points, we got beaten by Panton Hill by 12 points and we actually beat Reservoir.
“There’s a lot more positives to come out of last year than negatives.”
St Mary’s begins its 2013 campaign with an away match against Reservoir, before taking on grand finalist Panton Hill and Division 3 newcomer Thomastown in the next fortnight.
The tough start to the year will provide the Kinnear and his coaching staff a clear indication as to how far the club has progressed over the off-season.
