AFTER an enjoyable trip to Europe, Port Adelaide forward Angus Monfries says he is ready for the "nitty-gritty" - a grueling pre-season as promised by the club's high performance manager Darren Burgess.
Monfries arrived back in Adelaide with the rest of his teammates - and pop group Matchbox 20 - on Tuesday afternoon.
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The Power had been in Italy and England since October 27 and beat the Western Bulldogs by a point at The Oval in London on Saturday night.
Having crossed from Essendon, Monfries had previously trained under the Bombers' self-nicknamed "Weapon", Dean Robinson.
The 25-year-old was one of many Bombers who broke down during the season with a soft tissue injury and his former teammate Kyle Reimers told AFL.com.au the pre-season leading into 2012 "was by far the hardest thing I've personally done".
"I can vouch for nearly everyone that was on the list last year and they can agree with me, it was intense ... judging by the way we basically just died by the end of the year, it took its toll eventually," Reimers said.
Monfries agreed training under Robinson was hard, but offered a more watered-down appraisal.
"It was tough ... [but] every pre-season's pretty tough," he told reporters at Adelaide Airport.
Burgess told AFL.com.au in October that players could expect an "intense" summer at Alberton, as he tries to turn the club around after several lean years.
"I saw it (training intensity) a lot when I was with the Socceroos and I was lucky enough to go around and visit most top European clubs and gridiron and basketball and baseball clubs," Burgess said.
"But it still didn't really hit me until I got into a club like Liverpool and saw how hard the senior players, in particular, trained each day.
"Even if they had a game the next day their training intensity was right up there and you just restricted the time.
"Hopefully we can do that at Port Adelaide, where we might not be training for very long, but the intensity is always high."
Admitting the club's overseas trip was more about bonding than training, Monfries said he was ready for another hard summer and that toughing it out would be a fitting "initiation".
"I'm looking forward to having a pre-season under Darren Burgess and seeing what he's got in store for us," he said.
"That's to come later, we did a bit of training (overseas), got to know each other on a better level a bit more and we're starting (pre-season) next Monday.
"We'll start to get into the nitty-gritty things next week.
"It'll be a good initiation under Darren."
While bunking with defender Tom Logan while overseas, Monfries said several young players had surprised him during the exhibition match against the Bulldogs.
"I think there are a couple of young guys that seeing them close up [I was surprised at how good they are], Jasper Pittard 'Moorey' (Andrew Moore), 'Youngy' (Aaron Young) - all those sort of guys," he said.
"They played really well in the game and I think they can take their game to a new level next year.
"[When you're] training with guys you have a lot more of a gauge of what sort of person and player they are."
Harry Thring is a reporter for AFL Media. Follow him on Twitter: @AFL_Harry.
