Melbourne Storm winger Josh Addo-Carr wants to get faster after breakout premiership season

JOSH Addo-Carr is built for speed but the Melbourne Storm excitement machine makes every step count. And it’s just as much down to hard work as athletic ability.

Melbourne's Josh Addo-Carr is impossible to catch. (Brett Costello)

JOSH Addo-Carr is built for speed but the Melbourne Storm excitement machine makes every step count.

The leggy premiership winger with rockets for shoes has turbocharged his biggest weapon over the past 18 months, working on technique and reactive speed.

Exclusive data obtained by the Sunday Herald Sun reveals ‘The Foxx’ Addo-Carr reached a top speed of 37.8km/h last season — some 2.5km/h faster than the quickest AFL players.

Short of a match race between football codes, Blacktown product Addo-Carr rates among — if not the — fastest men in the NRL.

Only Brisbane Broncos flyer James Roberts would measure up with over a shorter distance.

‘Jimmy the Jet’ Roberts boasts explosive speed off the mark, an area Addo-Carr is keen to improve.

Storm flyers Suliasi Vunivalu and Josh Addo-Carr. Picture: Mark Stewart

The Storm flyer, who posted a blistering 10.6 seconds for 100m in high school, toyed with NRL rivals last year with unrivalled acceleration.

The 22 year-old bolter led the league in line breaks (26) and equalled Storm teammate, NRL top tryscorer Suliasi Vunivalu, with 23 meat pies — tries — after scoring the opening four-pointer in all three finals.

He finished with a double in the grand final demolition. And he says there’s plenty more where that came from.

“I’d like to think so (that I can get faster), there’s always room for improvement,” Addo-Carr told the Sunday Herald Sun.

“My best attribute is speed and I always like to work hard on my speed. Hopefully I can get faster.”

Addo-Carr improved by several lengths last season, working closely with conditioning and sprint coach Adam Basil on technique, pick-up speed and acceleration.

With a focus on running fast consistently under fatigue, Addo-Carr went from strength to strength in the premiership season, scoring 14 tries in the last 13 games including four doubles and a hat-trick.

“There’s no doubt he’s gifted with that raw running speed,” former Olympian Basil said.

“It’s something that you don’t often come across a lot.”

Addo-Carr has the rare ability to sustain a long sprint with or without the Steeden.

He glides over the turf and only needs the smallest of openings in the defensive line to burst through at speed and gap the field, lengthening with every stride.

Josh Addo-Carr scored two tries in the grand final. Picture: Brett Costello

At top speed, Addo-Carr will cover about 10 metres per second and makes it look “effortless”.

“We’ve been working a lot on his movement efficiency,” Basil said.

“By moving efficiently he’s able to generate the right amount of forces and accelerate properly and accelerate more efficiently which leads to a faster running speed.

“If he’s moving more efficiently throughout the game (then) towards the end of the game when he’s starting to show some signs of fatigue … he might get that (line) break.

“He can open up and run and move efficiently at speed and get that gap on defenders and maintain his running form and his running speed under fatigue.”

Addo-Carr is looking to repeat the dose in 2018 after exposing opposition defensive lines last year with several length-of-the-field efforts.

The 22 year-old also trained with sprint coach Roger Fabri during the off-season to stay up to speed.

Basil said Addo-Carr was capable of going faster with another preseason under his belt.

“I won’t put any limits on it and I’m sure he won’t put any limits on it,” Basil said.

“From what I’ve seen if he’s not then he’d be very, very close to the fastest footballer (of any code) in Australia.

“If he wasn’t involved in rugby league he certainly has got the attributes to potentially be one of the country’s top sprinters.”