Mitch Nichols says Melbourne Victory move has made him a better player A fitter, stronger Mitch Nichols is getting to his best at Victory. SOMETHING about Melbourne clearly agrees with Mitch Nichols. He's trimmer, fitter, focused and happy. He didn't dislike Brisbane Roar, quite the contrary, but after spending the first 24 years most of his life at two clubs in southeast Queensland it was time for a change. Nichols, 24, loves the horses and the occasional flutter, but says his move to Victory was no gamble. "It was the change I needed and it has refreshed me," he says. Even a few of the Brisbane boys have said that to me, so if they're saying that and can tell that I'm happy down here it's obviously been good. I've got what I've needed out of it so far and hopefully I can build on that. The midfielder's game has gone from strength to strength this season. He has arguably been Victory's best player in the first 10 rounds and put himself in the frame for selection in Ange Postecoglou's Socceroos World Cup squad. Under Victory fitness staff headed by strength and conditioning coach Pete Cklamovski, Nichols says he has lost "about two or three kilos," has learnt to push himself to exhaustion during every training session and is able to go "full throttle" for 90 minutes each game, owing a debt of gratitude to the Victory staff. But the main difference this season is that his focus is now fully on football. A look ahead to the latest instalment of the Melbourne Derby, with the Heart hosting the Victory at AAMI Park. "Up there I had all of my friends back on the Gold Coast," he says. Not that it was a distraction or anything like that, it's just that I probably wasn't football 24/7. It was more just thinking that I could stay up late, or go out here and there, eat badly sometimes. It was just simply one or two things that all adds up. That's something that I try to say to people now is if the coach is on to you about one or two things it means that you're obviously not doing things 100 per cent right. That was the story up there. It was just the little things, and I think I've rectified that since I've been down here. Nichols was barely out of nappies when he joined his older brother at the Palm Beach soccer club on the Gold Coast, the club that is largely responsible for moulding him because he never played anywhere else as a junior. Nichols reasons he was never selected for the Queensland Academy of Sport or Australian Institute of Sport like so many other talented youngsters because he was neither a typical footballer nor a natural athlete. "I think you can still see in my football that I'm a bit raw," he says. I didn't get coached properly until I was at the Roar when I was 18. Nichols in his early days with the Roar in 2009. It is not a point of regret. I probably could have worked on being a better athlete, try to make myself faster if that was what they thought I wasn't good at. But I just stuck to playing football how I wanted to play it and if that wasn't what they accepted then so be it. It may not have helped me back then, but I got here, got this far with it. You don't have to spend long with Nichols to realise how laid-back he is - the way he talks, the way he dresses and the sunglasses that are never far from his head. Nichols says that's a nod to his childhood on the Gold Coast. It was all good. The sun, the surf, and I was lucky enough to live out in the bush a little bit, Tallebudgera Valley. I was also lucky enough to have a lot of young kids around me of a similar age. We did everything together when I was young - football, soccer, AFL, skating, surfing, bike riding. It was a really good upbringing, really laid-back. Like me now, that sums me up. But I'm not laid-back on the field. I think if you ask the boys, that's where I take all of my anger out. Because he has been around for so long - 125 A-League appearances for Roar and 10 for Victory - it is easy to forget Nichols should still have his best football in front of him. Asked why he has not ventured to an overseas club, Nichols simply says: "I just haven't been good enough." Pressed further, he adds: "I'm still striving for that. It's in the back of my mind, but I know that if I play well here that will eventually happen. It's not something I'm bitter about, they just haven't been looking for someone like me so far. Obviously I would have to go over and work hard and prove myself because I'd be a foreigner, but when I go I want to be ready and establish myself straight away instead of building in to it over a year or two. I've looked at a lot of people that have gone overseas and I reckon more than half of them are back playing in the A-League now. If I do go over I hope it's a matter of, 'Bang, I'm playing, I'm one of the better players in the team or the coach counts on me'.