Melbourne Vixens' Geva Mentor keeps her eye on the ball in a game against the Sydney Swifts. Source: Gregg Porteous / News Corp Australia
MELBOURNE Vixens MVP Geva Mentor is confident she will be fresh for the start of the season, despite her heavy international workload with England over summer.
The All-Star goal keeper missed a large chunk of the pre-season with the Vixens while she was away on Test duties with the English team in December and January.
Mentor only rejoined her Vixens' teammates in mid-January after almost two months overseas for six Test matches — against Malawi, Wales and Jamaica — and a series of training camps.
While Mentor admitted her body could have done with a bit more rest, she believed her match fitness would benefit from her international commitments.
"Even though it is pre-season and things are a pretty hectic with the Vixens, I can almost now just sit back and take a breath,'' Mentor, 30, said.
"The body survived, I'm in one piece and I'm fit and ready to go.
"I'm happy I've got that behind me and the one good thing is at least I'm match fit and match ready to go.
"Whereas the girls have had a good pre-season behind them, I just sort of kept going.
"My body probably could have done with a bit more rest, but I knew that was the case and I put my hand up to represent my country and fulfil those requirements.
"So it meant that six months was going to be hectic and this six months will be until after the worlds (in August) ... I'm well prepared for that.''
Vixens coach Simone McKinnis has been managing Mentor's training load since her return from England, but the dual championship defender was pleased with her hit-out at last weekend's pre-season tournament in Sydney.
The Vixens will continue their build-up to the season with practice matches against round-one opponents Central Pulse in Wellington today (Friday) and tomorrow.
Goal attack Tegan Caldwell is expected back on court after she missed last weekend's summer shootout as she recovered from an ankle injury.
"We had a really tough training session this week, which included a bit of match play, so Tegan was able to have a good run,'' Mentor said.
"This weekend will be good for her to play a full 60 minutes, particularly at goal attack.''
"We played (Northern) Mystics in a pre-season game in Tassie last year and they were our first-round game and it worked really well for us.
"That New Zealand style of play is very true to how (Pulse) play as a side, so I think it is going to be good for us to face that good strong court zone that they put on.''
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