BEN Colreavy dedicated himself to get even fitter in 2011 when he decided against retirement following last year's premiership with Swan Districts and the move has clearly paid off highlighted by a career-best six goals last week against Peel.
Colreavy arrived at Swan Districts ahead of the 2009 WAFL season after playing 68 games with Claremont and also spending two years in the SANFL with Sturt, and was part of last year's premiership and then had to weigh up to retire with that glory or not.
New coach Greg Harding and some teammates made it clear that he should play on and with that he made a big effort to get even fitter and the results of that have been obvious with the 29-year-old feeling good physically.
That translated into a career-best six goals and 26 possessions in last Saturday's thrilling win over Peel at Mandurah's Bendigo Bank Stadium.
"It was good and it just seemed to be one of those days where I got to the front and square position, and the ball would go my way. There was a bit of luck involved, but it was good," Colreavy said.
"It's the first time I've kicked six before at league level but I have kicked five a couple of times. It was good to get to six for the first time."
Colreavy battled hamstring injuries last season and was still feeling tightness there heading into the grand final win over Claremont. That meant that when he decided he would play on in 2011 he wanted to do everything he could to feel as fit as possible, and it's paid off so far.
"Over the pre-season I made an effort to drop a few kilos just because I felt that I was carrying a bit too much, and my body was starting to struggle with carrying that weight," he said.
"I went out of my way to do a lot more running and I did a lot of work on the bike over the pre-season, and got those kilos off.
"I feel as though I'm running better than I have for three or four years now, which hopefully is paying off. I felt as though if I kept doing what I was last year that I would have kept getting those injuries."
Colreavy did think that retirement was the likely result following the premiership last year, but the chance to play under his former Claremont teammate and new coach Harding was a big factor, as was the urging from some of his Swan Districts teammates.
"I had no intention to come back really after the premiership, but over the pre-season Stiffy met with me a couple of times and he was able to twist my arm," Colreavy said.
"The fact that I had actually played football with him previously made for another reason to stick around to play under him, but also some of the players got in my ear and convinced me. I'm glad that I have now."
The forward-line worked well on Saturday against Peel with not only Colreavy kicking six goals, but Tim Geappen adding four and Ash Hansen three, and Colreavy expects it to only keep getting better the more time they spend playing together.
"One of the problems at the start of the year was that we were battling to kick goals especially with Ash not being there for the first couple of games," he said.
"I think too with Ash playing it takes a lot of pressure off Tim Geappen, which helps him play better and having Steve Coniglio back is huge because we all know how good of a player he can be."
Swans' hardly had a good start to the season with an 0-4 record before an encouraging Anzac Day win over Perth and then the three-point victory over Peel. Colreavy is hopeful that the black-and-whites keep improving from here.
"There are a few new faces within our side and we are slowly each week improving. We had a few guys with interrupted pre-seasons and now we are improving each week," Colreavy said.
"I think that will continue and we definitely aren’t playing our best footy yet, and probably won't next week or the week after, but as long as we keep building game by game hopefully we finish the year off in the four with form on our side."
