CRACKING THE CODE ... AFL with Karmichael Hunt courtesy of the Gold Coast Bulletin

WHEN I arrived at the Gold Coast Suns from France in late May, I knew my first few matches were not going to be too flash.

But as each week has passed, I feel I have improved in everything that I have been doing. It has been the combination of a number of things.

All the coaching staff have been helping me but I have been working really closely with assistant coach Shaun Hart the past few weeks as he handles the back line.

Harty has been giving me a lot of pointers on body positioning ... and in no way am I underestimating the contribution my teammates have made.

They were very welcoming, with everyone introducing themselves and making me feel comfortable from my first day.

Not once did I feel like an outsider, so that has been a major bonus for me and it helped me settle early.

It let me concentrate on the football side of things rather than worrying about making friends at the club.

On the track during the training drills, there have been times when I have asked a few of the boys what I can be doing better and they have been great in that regard.

So, in my own mind I was confident that if I kept turning up to training and matches with the right attitude I would get better.

And last Saturday's game against Sandringham was the combination of all the hard work that has gone on before the game.

I am feeling more comfortable each week but last week was a pretty substantial improvement for me.

Personally I was pretty happy with how I went and the coaches felt the same way.

They showed me a few cut-up clips of the game and there were some good moments and a few bad ones.

But overall they told me they were happy with how I went.

All the hard work at training and all the advice from the coaching staff is finally starting to show on the field.

This week hopefully the trend will continue against Geelong down at Skilled Stadium.

We have had some different weather conditions in recent weeks with the freezing conditions of Ballarat and then the humidity of Cairns.

Nathan Ablett has told me to expect it to be very cold so we will be certainly packing the thermals.

I have really enjoyed playing in the backline in recent weeks but this week the time has finally come for a shot at the midfield.

We have trained on the Carrara indoor basketball centre this week because of the pouring rain, which has meant there has been no time on the field yet.

But hopefully that will come this morning before we catch the flight to Melbourne.

Guy McKenna has just told me to go out there tomorrow and attack the ball as well as getting involved and seeing how the game unfolds.

It sounds like fun to me.