He’s kicked 648 in 254 games and has a resume that will likely gain him entry into the Australian Football Hall of Fame, but Jeremy Cameron is still working to improve himself.
The Geelong forward is coming off 64 goals (career third-highest) and 16 Brownlow Medal (career second-highest) votes, which earned him his fourth All-Australian selection.
However, less than a month from his 32nd birthday, Cameron is keen to find more consistency.
“I think I can always improve on everything,” Cameron said.
“I thought I was pretty inaccurate and I sort of flowed in and out of games at times.
“It’s never going to be perfect. It’s a bit like golf. I play a lot of golf and you never play a perfect round; it’s always frustrating.
“There’s always a missed putt or something you can improve on. I look at it that way.”
Cameron is also predicting improvement from Geelong’s forward group, which will continue to evolve following the retirement of Tom Hawkins.
Following Hawkins’ mid-season injury, Shannon Neale stepped up to play ten of Geelong’s final 11 matches, kicking 14 goals.
“Gelling with Big Shannon and the other guys up there is always an improvement,” Cameron said.
“Seeing how the flow goes throughout the forward line; we’ll have probably a lot of different guys in there, which we normally do anyway.
“We know we’re a flexible team. We can have guys play up the field, (and) in the midfield and get forward hard, and we can flip a lot of guys in a lot of positions.
“I think that’s a big improvement as well.”
Cameron has also welcomed the prospect of captain Patrick Dangerfield, who turns 35 next month, spending more time inside forward 50.
“We know he can impact as a forward,” Cameron said.
“He’s shown us in the past even when he’s pretty much just a standalone mid, he’s kicked goals over his career, and he’s very damaging when he gets forward.
“So, he’s going to be a good target for us when we meet him down there with myself, and Shannon, and Ollie Henry and the other guys.
“It’s going to be a bit of a ‘we’ll see how it goes’, and work away at it over the season.
“It is a long season, and we’ll get to sort of see how it goes early days, and then adjust when we need to.”
Geelong opens its 2025 campaign against reigning premier Brisbane on Thursday night.
The Cats led the Lions by as much as 25 points early in the third quarter of last year’s preliminary final before conceding nine of the last 12 goals of the contest.
Cameron says the loss “stung at the time” but was quick to put it behind him, and is now looking forward to taking on the competition’s best.
“We look forward to the challenge,” he said.
“We know they’re a really good team, the best team off the back of last year.
“It’s going to show us where we’re at.”
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