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Well the new facility is coming on. Can’t wait til it’s finished
Anyway. Training.
As others have said it was a very low key session with no contact work at all and only some fairly generic ball movement drills followed by goal kicking practice. Not much to report back with other than concentrating on who was or wasn’t training
No shows :
• Naitanui - guessing he was at the ninja academy where he’s said he trains on Wednesdays
• Brooksby - I don’t think I’ve seen him at training this year possibly because he’s being a ninja with Nic or perhaps he’s done a Burrows. More likely the former
• Brander - unawares of any issues with pig so no idea why he wasn’t out there
• Duggan - departed early last week and a non starter today despite training on Monday.
• O’Neill - truth be told he was actually there but might as well have been a no show as he didn’t even last until the stretches were complete before leaving. I’m assuming this wasn’t the plan as he did put a GPS tracker on and I’ve no idea why they’d need him to wear one walking from one side of the oval to the other and back
Partial shows :
• Cripps was walking laps on the outer oval as he gets over a toe injury. No surprise with that as the club has all but admitted he will miss the opening round(s)
• Kennedy - also walking laps as the club pulls his training loads back a little. No way of knowing if this is just to manage an older body or if there’s been a setback of some sort
• Shuey - kept JK and Cripps company. Hopefully nothing serious
• Ainsworth - did rehab work away from everyone else. Still not handling the ball too much with his left hand to protect the finger he had operated on. Seadog this is the young guy in the bucket hat you couldn’t recognise. Spent several minutes with Shuey at the end of the session discussing his kicking and footwork
It’s hard to know how serious or otherwise the injuries, if any, are to the above players because
a) the club medicos seem to be ultra cautious to avoid risks during preseason so will pull a player at the slightest hint of a problem and
b) the club is notoriously coy when discussing injuries so if there is a concern with a player don’t hold your breath waiting for any info
Everyone else did the full session including players who had previously been managed like Venables, Yeo, barrass, gov, redden, Cameron, Edwards, Waterman and Williams.
A few random thoughts/observations:
• Barrass is noticeably leaner and is covering the ground better as a result. Looks far more mobile that previous seasons
• I had reservations about how soon Venables would be ready to play but after seeing him do nothing but a bit of running before today he was moving well. At one stage he gathered a half volley pass at bootlace level at 3/4 pace without breaking stride.
• Had a brief chat with the AFL’s WA based reporter, Travis King, at the end of the session. Nice fella, especially for a journo
• Gov might be sitting out contact work but he’s getting his fair share of running in so fitness isn’t going to be an issue for him
• Early on Schofield was jogging a couple of laps of the MCG with Nicoski as company. If you gave them a tin cup each you’d be forgiven for thinking they were a pair of hobos
That’s about it
A bucketful of thanks for all that. Can't wait for the intraclub game now next Friday. It should provide a few clues on how we will line up in the early rounds.