AS PART of Carlton Media’s commitment to keep members and fans connected during the AFL shutdown, David Teague took to Facebook to answer your questions. 

Here are a few of the best:

You often talk about focussing on what we can control. One thing I'm mindful of is the talk around getting the boys prepared for contact and the heightened risk of collision injuries. What is the advice that the coaching staff have been given to help mitigate those situations as best you can? - Terry

It’s something we’ve planned for from a while back. We’ll build it up, we won’t go flat out.

We’ll gradually build it up and we’ll increase the loads. It’s not just the physical contact, it’s the spatial awareness of the players around you as well.

Jack Russell, our high performance manager will play a really important role in our planning of training and just to build this slowly over the week.

We’ve got three weeks to get ready and we’ll be aiming to be ready for Round 2.

Which player returned to the club in the best possible shape? - David

To be honest, the whole list has returned really well. I’ve been super proud, super impressed.

They were getting together, they were working in pairs away from the club and as soon as you start working with someone else, it drags you along and you get a feeling for where you’re at. 

The whole list has come back in really good condition. That’s been really pleasing.

 As a consequence of no VFL this year, will that give some players more opportunity to break into the AFL team to give them game time - Debbie

There’s going to be no VFL. Our players that are not listed are not allowed to play in any other competition, but what will happen is I think the AFL at this stage will assign you another club and we get to play against them.

The challenge with that is that we may have 20-22 available, they may only have 15. The logistics of how that works, we’re not quite sure, but the players that are not playing AFL will definitely get an opportunity to compete, to improve and to show that they’re in good condition and ready to go so they can put their hands up.

Training will be really important and I think we only get one main session a week, with everyone on the track, so training is going to be super important. It’s something we value very highly here already. Training form is almost as important as match form.

 With the disrupted season, will we see players with contracts up this year, play again next year? Eg Betts, Simmo & others - Charlie

If they’re playing well and they deserve a spot on our list, then absolutely. 

We don’t know what the list is doing next year in terms of list numbers. There is talk about the size of the list, but if a player is still in our best team – particularly going forward, then they’ll get another opportunity. But, again, it will come down to position and what’s behind them.

Right now, we’re getting some really good depth across half-forward and hopefully we can add some depth across that small forward: Josh Honey, Sam Philp have been quite strong down there. We’re looking for depth in all of our positions, but we’ll probably maintain the list that will give us the best chance moving forward to get us that ultimate success.