Luke Breust feeling the benefits of missing the finals last season
HAWTHORN is back on the September stage after missing out last season but the extra off-season allowed Luke Breust to reprogram his body and produce a career-best season.
HAWTHORN forward Luke Breust knew something had to change.
Uncharacteristically from a career sense, he had been caught in tackles so often in the first few months of last year that the frustration left him with a question he couldn’t answer immediately.
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“I’d been done holding the ball on average about once a game in the first six or eight rounds (in 2017), and I was thinking: ‘S---, either I am trying to do too much or my body is not allowing me to do the things I want to?’” Breust said.
“(In one game) I went to break from a stoppage and tried to bust through two players, and they got me holding the ball. I knew then I had some work to do.”
His 2017 form wasn’t bad; it just wasn’t to his normal standards. But he feared he had lost one of his great strengths — power.
“The loss of power worried me more than the pain,” he said.
“I didn’t feel as strong. Instead of nailing a set shot exactly on the line you wanted it, all of a sudden they were starting to fade left to right. With goalkicking, there is a small margin for error.”
Fast forward to September 2018, and Breust’s question has been definitively answered.
As the 27-year-old and the new-look Hawks prepare to take on Richmond in a qualifying final, he credits the long break in the off-season as well as the extra work he undertook in re-programming his body for a career-best season.
He was rewarded with a second All-Australian selection.
The one-time rookie turned AFL star joked to his family — father, Alan, mother, Denise, and siblings Rebecca and Mark, who often make a six-hour car trek from Temora, in NSW, to see him play — that it showed the first one wasn’t a fluke.
As it has turned out, missing the finals last year — for the only time in his AFL career — might have been the best thing for him body-wise.
“I had a bit of groin trouble at the start of 2011, even before I debuted,” Breust said. “Because we went so deep (into the finals campaigns), I played all that extra footy, and it has been a management process. I’ve been lucky I have been at this club because the fitness staff have been so good.
“But it does get to a point where you need a break, and that happened for me last pre-season. It allowed me get right the little niggles and launch into this season.”
Breust did two things late last year.
The first was to travel. He went on a handful of overseas trips — to a Hong Kong AFL clinic with former teammate Matt Suckling, a European vacation with his partner Anthea, a golfing holiday with teammates to the US, and a trip to Queenstown, NZ, for James Frawley’s bucks trip, just before the club went back there for a camp.
The second was to pay more attention to detail in preparation than he had ever done before.
He started to use therabands (elastic resistance bands) on a more consistent basis.
“I knew I had to get that strength back to a high level,” he said.
“Luckily for me, my groins, my glutes, my hip flexors and my quads, that whole area that I needed to play well, responded strongly by doing the extra work and putting a price on it.”
“They (coaching staff) challenged me on how much work I was doing with my craft around goals.
“So now after most sessions I’ll grab someone and have a muck around (with goalkicking contests). It’s just playing around with a mate for a $3.50 coffee, and it’s amazing how that translates to the pressure of a game.”
That often includes fellow All Australian Jack Gunston, with whom he has a great friendship/sporting rivalry. He plays golf off six to Gunston’s eight. He has kicked 53 goals; Gunston has 48 from one fewer game.
“There’s certainly a healthy rivalry, we have been able to bounce off each other and take our games to a new level,” Breust said.
Having been member of the club’s 2013-14-15 flag sides, Breust loves Hawthorn and didn’t want to leave when there was talk of a possible trade in late 2016.
“I got a phone call from Clarko on the Sunday after the Doggies loss (in 2016), and he said ‘Hey mate, can you and Anthea pop into my place’.” Breust recalled.
“I knew how much I wanted to stay at the club. I thought that if I could convey that to him, things were going to be OK.
“Pretty much from the moment I walked in, I knew we were on the same page, in wanting to chase that next piece of silverware.”
That chase for what could be a fourth premiership medal will be on in earnest tonight, with Breust delighted at how quickly the young Hawks have advanced in 2018.
“The hunger for me is as large as ever,” he said.
“I can’t wait to run out … knowing I will have a number of teammates playing their first final.”
Originally published as Luke Breust feeling the benefits of missing the finals last season