THE start of the 2015 Central West AFL season might be nearly six months away but the Bathurst Bushrangers won’t be sitting on their hands as they try to close the gap to two-time first grade premiers Orange.

The Bathurst club has already put their 2014 campaign behind them by going through post-season physical testing in recent weeks.

The idea behind the testing is to give the players some benchmarks from which to work over the off-season and into their preparations for next year’s competition.

It will be one in which the Bushrangers aim to avenge back-to-back grand final defeats to the Tigers.

Across a few weeks of data analysis, one thing became blindingly obvious – up-and-comer Rob O’Hara is a seriously fit footballer.

The teenager, who mixed his 2014 year between under 18s, reserves and first grade, was high in the rankings in every area of testing.

Scott Jablonskis topped the charts for push-ups in one minute with 88, four clear of O’Hara.

Those rankings were reversed for sit-ups with O’Hara managing 76 and Jablonskis 63.

Midfield star Paul Long recorded 11 minutes, 45 seconds for the three kilometre time-trial, but only nine seconds back was O’Hara, who then went and set the best time by far for the front-bridge, or plank.

His time of 7.01 minutes was two minutes clear of Matt Luther.

Steve Grundy was the best-ranked player in terms of a skin-fold test, recording 46 millimetres, better than the AFL average of 50mm.

Another standout was 16-year-old Jacob Davey who’s efforts to date have already made sure he will be in the eyes of the first grade selectors by next year.

“We’ve had about 20 of the guys do it so far,” organiser Brian Matheson said.

“From this we can give them an off-season program that they can work on and then test them again when they come back for the start of the proper pre-season after Christmas.

“We’ll see if they’ve lost or gained anything and then once more right before the start of the season itself, we will test them again and keep track of how everyone is going.”

The simple interest factor could be reason enough for many of the players to find out how they are progressing physically, but there is a deeper line of thought behind the idea.

Having lost consecutive grand finals to Orange, and slipped noticeably off the pace of the Tigers in 2014, the youthful Bushrangers need to fix one area in particular according to Matheson, one of the most experienced figures at the club.

“The thing we clearly lacked against Orange was basic size and strength, the average age of our team was 22 and if you took Peter Yandle out of that we drop to 21, so we were without the bigger bodies that they had,” he explained.

“That core strength is something we want to work on, we’re setting up a gym in the change rooms and doing some Believe boot camps to help us out.

“We have the skills to match Orange, but were getting pushed off the ball too easily. 

“With a year extra under the belt and the right training I think we can change that.”