Tom Nicholls wants to be Gold Coast’s man in the middle.

When arthroscopic knee surgery threatened to derail Nicholls’ 2014 preparations in November, the 22-year-old worked harder than he ever has before to ensure he wasn’t left behind, as the rest of the playing list continued to make strong strides completing another valuable AFL pre-season.

So much so the mobile ruckman set up camp inside the club’s altitude chamber for 14 days, after missing out on the team’s high altitude camp in Arizona.

Midfield coach and ruck coach Matthew Primus has had nothing but praise for Nicholls this summer, who showed even in his most recent performance against Collingwood, he is hell bent on challenging the competition’s best big men this year.

He collected game high hit-outs against Brisbane and Essendon, and outperformed Collingwood’s Brodie Grundy and Jarrod Witts around the stoppages on Sunday afternoon.

“It was definitely good dress rehearsal to go up against Grundy and Witts who are two ruckman on the rise,” Nicholls said.

“It’s always good to play against any ruckman and those two are great competitors of the game.”

Amassing 104 disposals in his eight senior appearances last year, the 200cm giant fed his midfield fleet with plenty of the footy, averaging 23 hit outs a game.

And he’s aiming to do the same in 2014.

“The boys have made massive strides this pre-season so it’s going to be good to translate those gains on the training track onto the playing field,” he said.

“Hopefully, we can win a few more games as well this year.”