Training Pre-season 2026

[Muddiemoose]

There are also plenty that do spend fair chunks of midfield time early in their careers and go well

Of course but it shouldn’t be an expectation nor should we enter a season banking on it

Especially given the early injuries our crop from last year copped

 

[Grrr]

I think expecting 2nd year players to be full time central midfielders is a good way to run them into the ground and stifle their development.

The point of my point was that with 2 full time mids, and Ross who played as good as the other two for much of the season, the 2nd year mids will be running cameo's through there, hence 4 or 5 names mentioned. With Prestia as well, we have to many permanent mids so the young players won't get a decent crack.

I feel pretty confident that our side this year will be significantly better than last year, but our midfield is the thing that will set us back unless we develop a point of difference in there. Lalor and Hotton are guns and both play aggressive football. Smillie and one of Cummings, Robey or whomever we chose this year will add to our depth. Time to give way in part to the youth.

 

[Grrr]

IE Trengove and Scully

or Anderson, Rowell, Wardlaw, McKercher, Daicos, Reid x2, Horne Francis, Ashcrofts etc.

Plenty of second year players are guns in their 2nd year.

 

[Forensi Tiger]

Leaving aside quality of disposals and defensive running, my guess is that for a midfielder who spends a fair bit of time on ball which he did, every team probably has at 3-4 averaging 23 disposals.

 

[Muddiemoose]

or Anderson, Rowell, Wardlaw, McKercher, Daicos, Reid x2, Horne Francis, Ashcrofts etc.

Plenty of second year players are guns in their 2nd year.

Most mentioned didn’t play full time mid in their 2nd season either
Mostly cameos in terms of midfield time but spent most of the time at half back or hff

 

[LC_15]

He looks 209 cm

You blind? 210cm!

 

[Tackle Bag]

Most mentioned didn’t play full time mid in their 2nd season either
Mostly cameos in terms of midfield time but spent most of the time at half back or hff

Thats another problem with Prestia. He is no good rotating forward or off a back flank. If he plays his minutes are almost entirely midfield time.

 

[THE THIN MAN]

Thats another problem with Prestia. He is no good rotating forward or off a back flank. If he plays his minutes are almost entirely midfield time.

Unfortunately Father Time has caught up with Prestia, need to move onwards.

 

[ComfortablyNumb]

are we training the house down yet?

 

[sante]

We don’t have any young pure mids on our list besides McCauliffe

 

[captain cotch 9]

are we training the house down yet?

I went past on the train the other morning and i can confirm....The roof was off.

 

[Danog]

We don’t have any young pure mids on our list besides McCauliffe

Is Smillie just invisible?

 

[sante]

Is Smillie just invisible?

Yet to debut so he’s an unknown at this point.

 

[Grrr]

Most mentioned didn’t play full time mid in their 2nd season either
Mostly cameos in terms of midfield time but spent most of the time at half back or hff

And I am not talking full time mid, but they were pretty much all running through the midfield in their second years.

Rowell had 9 Brownlow votes in his first 3 games as a mid, both Ashcrofts have been part of midfield rotations, Reid WC from day one, same with Horne-Francis, Daicos AA at 20 fro the middle.

Sort of pedantic because as I mentioned, not primary mids but running through the middle and guns by the time they are 20 odd years old. No reason that a few of our lot can't be much the same given the opportunity. You won't get that with 4 mids in front of them.

Forgot all about McAuliffe also, who could easily leapfrog up the rankings this season with no injuries. If Prestia gets games over a fit McAuliffe....

 

[Muddiemoose]

And I am not talking full time mid, but they were pretty much all running through the midfield in their second years.

Rowell had 9 Brownlow votes in his first 3 games as a mid, both Ashcrofts have been part of midfield rotations, Reid WC from day one, same with Horne-Francis, Daicos AA at 20 fro the middle.

Sort of pedantic because as I mentioned, not primary mids but running through the middle and guns by the time they are 20 odd years old. No reason that a few of our lot can't be much the same given the opportunity. You won't get that with 4 mids in front of them.

Forgot all about McAuliffe also, who could easily leapfrog up the rankings this season with no injuries. If Prestia gets games over a fit McAuliffe....

It seems you are getting worked up over that something that hasn’t happened if that’s the case

All of our draftee’s got midfield time last year when they were in the 22 and Prestia played without holding any of them back

Plus the sub rule is gone with an extra on the bench

Plenty of room for everyone to have a crack

Dunno what people are worried about

 

[JAKLAUGHING]

are we training the house down yet?

 

[Grrr]

It seems you are getting worked up over that something that hasn’t happened if that’s the case

All of our draftee’s got midfield time last year when they were in the 22 and Prestia played without holding any of them back

Plus the sub rule is gone with an extra on the bench

Plenty of room for everyone to have a crack

Dunno what people are worried about

It did not work well last year. It worked well enough against sides around our mark, but against good midfields, our mids were smashed. If not for our good backline it would have been much worse.

As I mentioned earlier, I don't see the point of treading water this year and believe we can be much better than that. I never believed last season we were as hopeless as most predicted and I believe we have a good overall side unless injuries crucify us again.

I backline will be the same but a year of further development into the younger players and Balta back and settled. Our forward line will be much stronger especially if Lynch has a half decent year, which is still possible. But our midfield of Taranto, Hopper, Prestia and to a lesser extent Ross are so slow they cannot keep up with pacy and classy mids.

Our young players barely got a run through the middle. Lalor a bit before injury and how good did he look. Hotton again looked very good but was only around for 7 games, McAuliffe looked very promising but injured. Smillie the great unknown. There are others and they will all be fit and raring to go with some luck.

 

[Muddiemoose]

It did not work well last year. It worked well enough against sides around our mark, but against good midfields, our mids were smashed. If not for our good backline it would have been much worse.

As I mentioned earlier, I don't see the point of treading water this year and believe we can be much better than that. I never believed last season we were as hopeless as most predicted and I believe we have a good overall side unless injuries crucify us again.

I backline will be the same but a year of further development into the younger players and Balta back and settled. Our forward line will be much stronger especially if Lynch has a half decent year, which is still possible. But our midfield of Taranto, Hopper, Prestia and to a lesser extent Ross are so slow they cannot keep up with pacy and classy mids.

Our young players barely got a run through the middle. Lalor a bit before injury and how good did he look. Hotton again looked very good but was only around for 7 games, McAuliffe looked very promising but injured. Smillie the great unknown. There are others and they will all be fit and raring to go with some luck.

It didn’t work last year for the same reasons we won’t look spectacular next year

We are a young side carrying a lot of youth and inexperience, especially on the wings and half forwards

Our starting mids are fine right now, it’s those semi midfielders like Trezise, Ralphsmith, Sonsie and even the guys like Campbell who are still learning when and how to defend vs attack

It’s those role players who are the links between each line be it attacking or defending

that’s just how it’s going to go for a few seasons until our players develop and play enough games together before we start to see consistency

 

[Tackle Bag]

It didn’t work last year for the same reasons we won’t look spectacular next year

We are a young side carrying a lot of youth and inexperience, especially on the wings and half forwards

Our starting mids are fine right now, it’s those semi midfielders like Trezise, Ralphsmith, Sonsie and even the guys like Campbell who are still learning when and how to defend vs attack

It’s those role players who are the links between each line be it attacking or defending

that’s just how it’s going to go for a few seasons until our players develop and play enough games together before we start to see consistency

Youre kidding. If you think there isn’t a problem with running Prestia, Hopper and Taranto as the primary starters through our midfield then I’m not sure what you’ve been watching.

We should have seen way more change through there last year. Not doing more through rotations and getting youth through the middle earlier in the year is one of the biggest concerns I’ve had with Yze so far. He did it a bit more later in the year and said he was excited by what he saw. No Shit! Why he wasn’t doing it earlier instead of running Kmac through the middle as our next best option is staggering.

We were/are going to be losing games anyway, let’s give the kids as big a taste as we can, keeping wear and tear in mind obviously

 

[Coach_Required]

Youre kidding. If you think there isn’t a problem with running Prestia, Hopper and Taranto as the primary starters through our midfield then I’m not sure what you’ve been watching.

We should have seen way more change through there last year. Not doing more through rotations and getting youth through the middle earlier in the year is one of the biggest concerns I’ve had with Yze so far. He did it a bit more later in the year and said he was excited by what he saw. No Shit! Why he wasn’t doing it earlier instead of running Kmac through the middle as our next best option is staggering.

We were/are going to be losing games anyway, let’s give the kids as big a taste as we can, keeping wear and tear in mind obviously

Reckon he only did it because of injuries as well. Did not like the look of our team early last year, but with Dow looking like he is gone and McIntosh retired im happy to give him the benefit of the doubt and perhaps he did it because he wanted to see what those guys had left.

 

[Muddiemoose]

Youre kidding. If you think there isn’t a problem with running Prestia, Hopper and Taranto as the primary starters through our midfield then I’m not sure what you’ve been watching.

We should have seen way more change through there last year. Not doing more through rotations and getting youth through the middle earlier in the year is one of the biggest concerns I’ve had with Yze so far. He did it a bit more later in the year and said he was excited by what he saw. No Shit! Why he wasn’t doing it earlier instead of running Kmac through the middle as our next best option is staggering.

We were/are going to be losing games anyway, let’s give the kids as big a taste as we can, keeping wear and tear in mind obviously

We don’t have the cattle to make the change yet, that’s what will happen as last year’s, this years and next years crop develop

As they get stronger and more experienced they will push out the older hands

 

[Tackle Bag]

We don’t have the cattle to make the change yet, that’s what will happen as last year’s, this years and next years crop develop

As they get stronger and more experienced they will push out the older hands

Give me a younger player learning and making mistakes over on older player who simply can’t get it done anymore, any day.

 

[Forensi Tiger]

You blind? 210cm!

No he’s just grown another cm between my post and yours

 

[Tackle Bag]

Reckon he only did it because of injuries as well. Did not like the look of our team early last year, but with Dow looking like he is gone and McIntosh retired im happy to give him the benefit of the doubt and perhaps he did it because he wanted to see what those guys had left.

If he couldn’t see that Kmac was finished then we have a problem.

Injuries were a factor at times yes, but there were available options that could have seen more time and our midfield was a glaring issue. Not doing anything different for most of the year was a wasted opportunity.

If we roll out the same starting three this coming season then it will be poor coaching, simple as that. I hope they see Prestia as back up only. I fear that is not the case.

 

[Grrr]

We don’t have the cattle to make the change yet, that’s what will happen as last year’s, this years and next years crop develop

As they get stronger and more experienced they will push out the older hands

That will happen eventually but it needs to start happening now.

Yes Taranto, Hopper and Ross do the heavy lifting because our kids were not ready last year. But a lot can change in one season.

McAuliffe, Lalor and Smillie are not like a lot of other young mids, they are tanks already so don't need the protection of a Daicos or similar type, they just need the tanks. Hotton is similar to Daicos in many ways, maybe puts his head over the ball more so he is not far off. One or two of the should be in the middle at any one time, that will not happen while Prestia is sitil there. 5 on the interchange will help as you mentioned earlier.