THE DEMONS’ pre-season campaign is officially underway, with the full squad coming together on Monday morning.  

Melbourne’s senior players joined its youngsters for the first session back, as plenty of running and skills work headlined the agenda.

The group were put through their paces early, taking to The Tan to complete a 3km time trial, before returning to Gosch’s Paddock for the remainder of training.

With Melbourne turning on the sunny conditions, forward Jake Melksham said the group were eager to push their limits.

“The track wasn’t too hard, it was more so The Tan track over the road when we did the 3km [time trial] – that was difficult,” he told Melbourne Media.

“Eleven, twelve weeks is a long time [to be away from the club] and I was getting a bit bored at home, getting a bit of cabin fever.

“It’s great to be back amongst the boys and … it’s a good vibe around the club.”

Speedster Alex Neal-Bullen took out the timed run, which was completed in three separate groups, with second-year Demon Toby Bedford and veteran Nathan Jones close behind him. 

Featuring in the top finishers, Melksham said it was a good indicator of where his body is at, following a solid off-season.

“I haven’t missed any sessions,” he said.

“This time last year, I had come off ankle surgery and didn’t do any pre-season really, which was unusual for me.

“Hopefully it’s back to normal now this summer and I can have a good crack at it.”

Melksham played just eight games in 2019, with a foot injury forcing him to the sidelines for the middle chunk of the year. 

But as he heads into his fourth pre-season in the red and blue, the 28-year-old is feeling fresh and ready to put in the work.

“My foot is feeling good – that was good the last month that I played, so there are no issues there at all,” he said.

“It’s just training the body back up again for a long summer, because I missed one last year.”

While the group can tick the first session off, the hard work has only just begun, with a gruelling couple of months on the schedule.

And under new Performance Manager Darren Burgess, there’s no hiding.

“Darren has talked about what we’re going to be doing over the next few of months of training and the sort of stuff we will be doing,” Melksham said.

“It’s stuff we haven’t really done before and it’s stuff that we need [to do] also.

“We want to leave nothing in the tank going into Round 1, making sure we’ve done everything we can.”