Dempsey on his development

Fourth season in, it feels a bit weird.

We came in together [Prespakis], so it is pretty funny being from the same year.

I have sort of progressed every year, just being able to keep working on the little things and doing what the coaches say.

I feel like I am getting better each week which is nice, hopefully I can keep going. 

Prespakis on the excitement leading into Round 1

We are really excited, obviously it is such a long off-season for us.

We put in a really good block in the pre-season, I am feeling really confident with where we are at.

It was good to obviously get a couple of wins in the practice matches, just to give us that little bit of confidence going into Round 1 against the reigning premiers, which we know will be a challenge. 

Prespakis on Tom Atkins' Coaching Influence

He has been great.

He come in and he is quite a defensive midfielder, so at the start he asked me to stop slashing through every centre bounce and stoppage, and I said absolutely not.

We clashed a bit early on but now he has certainly given me a lot of knowledge, just being able to play off the body and adding that layer to my game which has been great.

He has been incredibly great for us as a midfield group, he is a pretty simple guy so he is very straight to point which we all like.

Dempsey on his role

I came in as a forward obviously, then have progressed to the wing. I think eventually, I don't really know where they will want to play me.

I can play a few different positions and I want to add midfield to that, we will see what happens over the next few years.

But for now, I just want to lockdown that wing role and play it a bit different to most.

I am definitely enjoying it with the licence I have. 

Prespakis on the pre-season focus

Our strength and conditioning has been a massive thing this year, it is held us in good stead.

The program that they have put in place for us to be able to get to Round 1 as healthy as we possibly can be, we definitely feel confident.

We have done a mountain of work on what we have wanted to achieve in this pre-season from a football perspective, so now it is just going out and being able to do it consistently. 

Dempsey on the takeaways from Friday night

I don't think we played how we wanted to for four quarters, but we obviously got the win and they played pretty well themselves so it was good to take a 44-point win.

We got challenged which was actually a bit of a positive for us.

Going into this week against a very hard opposition who are in great nick, I think it was good for us overall and there is still a bit of our game that we are trying to polish up just before Finals.

Prespakis on the challenge against the Kangaroos

We feel quite lucky to be able to North Melbourne in Round 1 and to have that challenge.

But we certainly know that we are up for it, we obviously took two points off them last year and we have had some pretty close games with them previously.

But it would be nice to get the four points and to start to the year off right.

We know that they are a really quality side and that the competition continues to evolve every year, so I am sure how they play this year will be very different to last year.