In an ominous sign for rival AFL clubs, Hawthorn star Jaeger O'Meara is poised to take his game to a new level after completing a pre-season free of the nagging knee soreness that has hampered him in the past.
A ruptured patella tendon and associated complications suffered at former club Gold Coast in 2015 kept O'Meara to just six AFL matches in three years.
But the Hawks' renowned medical and fitness staff helped him feature in 21 games last year.
Following on from that progress, and in a departure from previous limited preparations, he was then able to participate in most of the summer training program to dispatch any lingering mental demons.
"Probably, initially when I was first coming back from the injury, I might have had a little bit of anxiety and fear I had to get over," O'Meara told reporters on Tuesday.
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"But I feel like I'm past that now, I can just focus primarily on football and my role for the team, so it's not really in the back of my mind anymore.
"... I've managed a pretty good pre-season. I'm pretty happy with where my body is at.
"It's been a bit of a natural progression ... I think just building those blocks has enabled me to have a good pre-season and hopefully I can play in all the games."
That's music to the ears of Hawks fans still reeling from the shock loss of Tom Mitchell, the Brownlow Medal winner likely to miss the entire season after suffering a badly broken leg at training.
But O'Meara, who was recently elevated to the leadership group for the first time, doesn't feel like it will be his job alone to cover for the prolific ball-winner.
"I don't think there's any added pressure ... it will enable guys to step up," he said.
"Tom's obviously a special player, so it's not going to be easy to fill that role, it will be a collective effort.
"It's not going to be one bloke who steps up and does that."
Hawthorn kick off their 2019 premiership campaign against the Crows at Adelaide Oval on Saturday.
