Port Adelaide utility Jason Horne-Francis believes an off-season trip to the United States can help him morph from good to great.
Horne-Francis and some Power teammates travelled to the US to visit injury prevention experts, resulting in changes to his preparation for the looming AFL season.
"The trip over to America has helped us tinker my gym program, my prehab before training, to get my body right," the 21-year-old told reporters on Monday.
"I have been a bit lucky with with my body, obviously with the power - I guess I just really need to make sure I look after it as much as I can.
"And I think the trip definitely helped that, just to learn about my body, learn about more soft tissue and what goes on in there.
"It has been really good for me and I just keep continuing to learn."
Horne-Francis said the takeaways from the trip should help him play increased midfield minutes.
"Looking after my body in season (can) always improve my fitness obviously, being more consistent through our games.
"And not just having patches is probably where I need to get better, if I can keep having more good moments and turning them into big games that will go a long way.
"Whether it's my running patterns or it's my fitness, I think I've learned a lot over the last couple of years and it will hold me in good stead to be able to play some more minutes in the midfield."
Horne-Francis played 24 of 26 games last season, when the Power were ultimately beaten in a preliminary final by Sydney.
"I think we had the youngest finals team going into it so the learnings were just, I guess, getting a bit of exposure to finals footy, which some of us young boys probably didn't have, getting more experience with that," he said.
"It's a tough competition, only one team can win it and we know it's really hard internally to do.
"So I think you got to move on as quick as you can and just take a lot of learnings out of what it was.
"(But) it's definitely a driver. Seeing the teams on the last day, that builds the fire in your belly to want to be there on that day and want to win so definitely every year, it builds that fire."
