HIBS may have had only a few weeks' break in the summer but Martin Canning admits that he's already desperate get back to SPL action again.
The Easter Road side were afforded one of their shortest breaks ever at the end of last season because of their participation in the InterToto Cup, which kicked off at the beginning of July.
That gave the players just over three weeks off after a
gruelling domestic season before returning to training and, the European games against Elfsborg aside, they faced a string of testing pre-season matches.
However, having been through the mill with injuries and the financial crisis at Gretna last season, Canning is simply focusing on getting back to playing football and hopefully to securing an extended run in Mixu Paatelainen's starting XI for the new campaign.
The big defender had been Gretna's record signing, joining the Raydale Park outfit for £60,000 from Ross County in January 2006.
But, just two years later and with Brooks Mileson's club on the brink of disaster, Canning and the rest of the first-team players were released from their contracts to allow them to find new clubs.
Having also missed a chunk of last season with injury problems, Canning is delighted to have been able to get a full pre-season under his belt and to be looking forward to battling it out for a regular starting spot for the Easter Road side over the coming months.
Increased competition for places meant that Paatelainen used 22 players in the friendly match against Wigan on Tuesday night – and indicated that it will be increasingly difficult for players to hold down a place in the team.
But Canning is determined to give himself every chance and admitted: "From a personal point of view, I would like to be playing every week – and so would everyone else.
"Obviously having competition like that for places is a great thing for the manager because he knows that he has cover in every position really and it is great for the club.
"We will have to wait and see what happens when the manager names his starting line-up for the Kilmarnock game.
"I want to play as much football as I can, I am just happy right now to be back, to be fit and training every day and hopefully to trying to get a run in the team.
"I missed a fair bit of last season through injury so to be able to get a full pre-season under my belt and to be available for selection is fantastic for me and now I will just have to keep my fingers crossed and wait and see what the manager does.
"If I'm picked I'll give 100 per cent and hopefully do enough to keep my place in the side."
Canning may have played a limited role in the pre-season matches, but he has seen enough to know that the performances and results have been far from good enough to keep the club's supporters happy.
However he believes that the start of the new domestic campaign could signal an end to their frustrations. He has already seen a huge improvement in fitness levels among the players and in the performances against both Middlesbrough and Wigan and he added: "There have been good games – the matches that we have played, probably with a couple of exceptions have been against top teams and it has been a great experience for the players.
"I'm not sure that the fans have enjoyed it so much, even just from the point of view of the results that we have had but the players are well aware of that and hopefully they have seen that we have come on a bit in the last couple of matches.
"We are just looking forward to the league starting. Pre-season is mainly about getting your fitness and your match sharpness back again. Obviously we would have liked to have had the results to go with it, but it hasn't worked out that way. I think that, towards the end of our pre-season, particularly in the last two games, we've shown an improvement and we have played some not bad stuff and managed to score a couple of goals as well.
"We're obviously a lot fitter than we were at the start of pre-season and I think that the shape is there as well, we're getting used to playing alongside one another again. All we have to do now is close the door at the back because we have lost a few goals over the course over the last few weeks."
However Canning admits that, if they are to get their season off to the perfect start though, they will have to at the top of their game: "Everyone is just looking forward to the SPL starting again because it has been a fairly long pre-season when you think back to the InterToto games.
"Hopefully in the long run though, the amount of games that we have played and the quality of the opposition will benefit us and we will be able to come flying out of the traps against Kilmarnock tomorrow.
"Kilmarnock are a good side and they always give you a tough game – but I don't think that you get an easy game in the SPL these days.
"Every game is difficult at this stage of the season because everyone has worked hard in pre-season to make sure that they are in the best condition possible and obviously they all want to get off to a flier.
"It will be a very hard game but hopefully we can go down there and take all three points from them.
"Every team wants to start well. If you start poorly it can be difficult for you to turn it around, whereas a couple of good results can really lift the confidence and everything else just starts to fall into place."
While there might be an increasing amount of competition for places in the Hibs squad right now, Canning has been pleased with the emergence of Paul Hanlon from the ranks.
The young defender broke into the team at the tail end of last season and has been used regularly throughout the pre-season games, including a torrid 45 minutes against Argentinian superstar Lionel Messi in the friendly with Barcelona at Murrayfield last month.
And Canning said of the 18-year-old: "If there are young players at the club who are good enough to play then the manager has shown that he is not scared to use them and the club has shown consistently in the past that they will give young boys their chance if they deserve it.
"Young Paul is a nice lad and he has got a level head on his shoulders as well which will really help him. I think that he will do well and he has got a lot of potential."
The full article contains 1174 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
