Senior Coach Chris Fagan is banking on the Lions’ youth brigade to drive high training standards throughout the summer.

Fagan began his journey with the Lions this morning as first-to-fourth-year players returned for pre-season training.

“Generally speaking I was really happy (with the effort).”

“In fact we probably had to pull them back a bit they were trying to probably go a bit too intensely in the drills.”

Emerging midfielder Nick Robertson took out the Club's first time trial of the pre-season.

The West Australian set the pace early in the Lions' three-kilometre run at Queensland Sports and Athletics Centre.

“I was pleased with their effort and enthusiasm. A couple of the guys ran PB’s in the 3km time-trial which is always pleasing because you’re looking for them to do that in the time-trial before Christmas.

“Josh Schache and Nick Robertson both did PB’s. That’s a good sign that they’ve had a good off-season and they’ve come back really determined to perform well. Lewy Taylor was another one that stood out.”

Second year forward, Schache, left the field after pushing himself to his limits near the end of the session.

“He pushed himself to the limit in the time-trial and ran out of a bit of gas there towards the end of the 3-minute runs. I’m happy to see them push themselves and pull up short rather than take it easy and get through easily.

“I chatted to the players before training about the idea of continuous improvement and turning up every time you train with a few goals in mind and what you want to get out of that session.

READ: Fagan wants "continuous improvement"

“I think if you do that every time that you train, in the end you improve and good things start to happen and that’s pretty much the focus for us.

“We’re not talking about finals or how many games we want to win or anything like that, it’s just about trying to get better all the time and those sorts of things will handle themselves.”

Fagan revealed the Lions would hold a December camp in Tasmania as part of their pre-season.

“We’re going to have a camp before Christmas in Tasmania.

“We’ll go and train in the cool weather. When other teams come up here to train in the heat we’ll train in a bit of cooler weather and we’ll introduce all the game plan in detail then so they’re really clear on it before they go on their Christmas break and then when we return in January we’ll train really hard.”

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