ENERGY, optimism and application.

They’re the three things which have summed up Carlton’s beginning to pre-season, according to assistant coach Dale Amos.

While pre-season officially began for everyone on Monday, Ikon Park has been distinctly crowded for three weeks, with senior players returning early for training alongside their younger teammates.

Speaking on SEN, Amos said the enthusiasm across the playing group had been evident ever since the resumption of training.

“When Kade Simpson is starting pre-season No.18 and he’s happy to pop in early for a couple of sessions, it’s probably good enough for everyone else,” Amos said.

“In the two weeks preceding, we virtually had all of our senior guys in for one and some of them for multiple sessions.

“The impetus we were able to build in the back half of the year through the footy we played, the way we played and the confidence the players built has certainly generated some energy for us and the supporters.

“That’s definitely carried into pre-season.”

As Carlton’s emerging group continues casting an eye towards maturing at the senior level, a number of Blues have returned in career-best condition.

Highlighting Jacob Weitering, Zac Fisher and Will Setterfield among others, Amos said the evidence was clear in how key a strong summer is to set up a consistent home-and-away campaign.

The back-line coach was also full of praise for Mitch McGovern, echoing previous sentiments about the key forward returning in good shape.

“He’s a real power athlete, Mitch: he’s building up his resilience to be able to cope with what he’s able to do physically,” he said.

“He’s certainly in good shape and ready to attack a pre-season.”

With Carlton entering its first full pre-season under Senior Coach David Teague, attention has turned to the changes in game style ahead of 2020.

However, Amos said that in all likelihood, there would be slight tweaks to the details as opposed to the overall style of play.

“We became more aggressive offensively last year, which means we had to become more aggressive defensively,” he said.

“The thing that stands out about ‘Teaguey’ from when he took over - and it’s exactly the same today - is he has not changed one bit. He knows who he is as a person and as a coach.

“We want to be able to generate more scores, which we were able to do but we still need to be able to refine that. Against a couple of good sides, we struggled to be able to score against them.

“It’s the detail and the ability to do three main sessions a week: we get a real chance to be able to work on that.”