Training Preseason Training Thread - 2026

[Keys]

The below is the OG faux training report from nearly 9 years ago - often imitated but never surpassed

In the absence of Keys I went down for a trundle this morning to check them out on return. Just a few random notes I took down...

• A lot of running work again, clearly a focus even in the heat.
• Duggan looked on and was hitting targets left and right. Set for a huge 2017.
• Giles went up against Vardy in the ruck contests and I'd say that Giles has the inside running at the moment.
• Mitchell looked a class above the other midfielders bar Priddis. Just knew how to find the footy and wouldn't miss a target all session. Shuey was very quiet and seemed to be taking direction from Mitchell. Doesn't bode well for his captaincy credentials, maybe he doesn't want the gig?
• Won't say too much about it in case I was just reading too much into it, but Rioli looked as though he'd enjoyed the Christmas break a bit too much. A few of the coaches pulled him aside and they were having quite an animated conversation before Rioli was sent to do laps for the rest of the session. Good news for Le Cras, I suppose.
• Sheed kicked on his right foot for 80% of the session, I reckon. Nice to see players working on their non-preferred so readily.
• Petrie looked like he was doing a great job 'coaching' the younger forwards in between the drills. Darling in particular seemed to be following him around.
• Gee Venables has some skills. He mainly jogged laps before spending the last half hour or so on set shots - curled a few beauties from behind the boundary line at the end for a bit of fun. Hardly saw him miss a kick.
• What interested me the most was that McGovern split his time between the defenders and the forwards, could be seeing a swingman role in 2017. He was his usual dominant self down back in some match simulation drills before going head-to-head with Mackenzie in a forward role.
• Bayok is very fast - Cripps was in most of the drills with him and couldn't keep up.
• Nelson is pale as buggery and still doesn't really have the body shape you'd expect of an AFL player.
• There was a big bloke who pulled up next to me and I could have sworn it was Suma, but I'm sure I was wrong...
• Masto was the player picked to kick the goal at the end today and nailed it. Celebrations were huge.
• No sign of Cole, Parto or Hill. Couldn't tell you why.

Will upload pics later if I have time. Let me know if you have any questions!

You might wonder why I’ve put this up and stickied it

Because this is the standard all copies should be measured against and it’s a reminder of how high the bar was set

And to hopefully discourage sequels.

If you want to have a crack in my absence, go ahead but if it doesn’t equal the standard set (as judged by me), then expect

• A one week threadban for a first offence
• A two week threadban for a second offence
• A one year threadban for a third offence

Actual training reports, minus discussion, can become found here:

Training - Preseason Training Reports -2025/26

This thread has been setup for training reports only and won’t be open for replies Informative reports from the preseason thread will be copied into this thread so posters have access to the quality work from the likes of LittleFires without wading through pages of general posts

www.bigfooty.com

 

[Selurs]

Ah great - only took two weeks after the list lodgement deadline and a question from Mark Duffield to Don Pyke on radio for them to remember to announce it... sorry but that is pretty amateurish from the club.

Yes and no. Signing to official press release is clearly delayed for all players for "reasons" (AFL approval, finding a good media window, etc...but also not really important to this point)...so someone somewhere would be maintaining an excel spreadsheet with this type of thing in it. They probably went on leave at the end of the season before the official clearances came in, then everyone kinda just forgot about it once the draft stuff took over.

Ideally it's the sort of thing you'd think they should have reminders set up to track but that requires some serious organisation and co-ordination likely between different people which is rare in even the most well-oiled companies let alone an AFL club media team which would be shockingly small, if not flush with "jobs for the boys" type hires (after all, what kind of degree do you need to put "professional instagrammer" on your CV?).

 

[uptheWC]

Just sinking in...I've been watching Crippa play footy (to some extent) since I was 2 years old. Glad he got another year, and hope he gets a big farewell game near the end to send him off properly. Underrated career and will go out a legend of the club. Looking forward to what he brings to the AFL and hopefully the WAFL too in the meantime.

We’ve been surpassed txbyhull

 

[Elite Pete]

Ah great - only took two weeks after the list lodgement deadline and a question from Mark Duffield to Don Pyke on radio for them to remember to announce it... sorry but that is pretty amateurish from the club.

Now I wonder if we'll ever hear about Malakai Champion? With a bit of luck they'll remember to announce his extension sometime before Christmas.

Woosh is on with Goss today. Someone needs to text in and we will see an announcement tomorrow…

 

[bzparkes]

Can't believe nobody went down today to stare at players 80m away through gaps in a fence

 

[THE A5]

Sometimes i forget this board actually has some kids using it. In my mind the youngens on here are like early 20 year olds

 

[bzparkes]

Sometimes i forget this board actually has some kids using it. In my mind the youngens on here are like early 20 year olds

I've been on this site since I was 22.

I'm now 41.

It's about the friends you make along the way.

 

[txbyhull]

I've been on this site since I was 22.

I'm now 41.

It's about the friends you make along the way.

I've been on this site since I was 20.

I'm still 20.

Looking forward to making friends on the way to our 2030 flag.

 

[bzparkes]

I've been on this site since I was 20.

I'm still 20.

Looking forward to making friends on the way to our 2030 flag.

I use the term 'friends' somewhat loosely.

More like 'jousting partners' in a lot of cases.

 

[matt_bas]

I use the term 'friends' somewhat loosely.

More like 'jousting partners' in a lot of cases.

Wow...I thought we were friends not just jousting partners

 

[jdisc]

I've only been on this site for about 4-5 weeks

despite what your common sense or just basic logic might tell you, i promise it is only 4-5 weeks

 

[bzparkes]

Wow...I thought we were friends not just jousting partners

 

[bzparkes]

I've only been on this site for about 4-5 weeks

Per month?

 

[LittleFires]

Can't believe nobody went down today to stare at players 80m away through gaps in a fence

Ha, you thought I wasn't crazy enough to do that again... luckily I found a better spot this morning and my eyes weren't hurting as much by the end.

The final session of the week was reasonably light, lasting a little under 2 hours and there were no media present. When I arrived at 9:00 they had already started, so I'm not sure how long they had been going before then, but it did look like they were just warming up.

After some sprints and kicking practice they split into two groups and practised turning forward handball and kicking chains inside 50 into goals. They then did a drill training handball skills in congestion, before splitting into several groups and moving onto some more ball movement drills.

After this they split into two groups and seemed to be practising setting up their team defence against opposition ball movement - I heard Mini here reiterating the importance of communicating with each other to ensure they covered all loose players. This was definitely the longest-lasting drill of the session, with Mini emphasising to the players "don't get bored with this" and to continue searching for any improvements possible.

To finish, the players did some run throughs in groups and then split into smaller groups to work on fundamentals specific to their positions - key position players doing aerial contests, rucks doing tap work, smalls focusing on ground balls, etc. The players headed inside around 10:45.

The players got plenty of goalkicking practice today as well, with the drills broken up by 2-3 minutes of set shot work in between.

Details on who did/didn't train:

• Brockman, Kelly, Cripps, Graham, Flynn, Cole, Young and Starcevich were the players I didn't see
• Ash Johnson and Archie Watt were out there again, so a total of 32 on track today
• Liam Baker made his first appearance of the preseason and did almost all of the session, only sitting out of one drill to do some tackling work with Waterman (who also trained fully apart from that)
• Bailey Williams probably did the least of the players I saw, and was restricted to laps/run throughs at a light pace. He disappeared about 30 minutes into the session but came out again later to do some light tap work with Barnett
• Barnett also spent the session away from the main group doing run throughs (some at pretty decent speed) and kicking. Seemed to finish up around 40 minutes in but then came out again with Bailey Williams for some ruck work. He was sporting a pretty heavy left leg brace but was running at a decent pace - didn't always look super fluid when running but some of that might be down to him being a pretty big guy.
• Yeo and Dewar spent the first 45ish minutes of the session doing run throughs away from the main group before some relaxed kick to kick to finish.
• Duggan warmed up with the main group but spent most of the session running laps before joining Yeo and Dewar for a kick towards the end.
• Gross was once again put through his paces with a big running session, doing run throughs and laps by himself for the first hour of the session before joining the main group at the end with their run throughs.
• Hough (right shoulder strapped) and Ginbey did about half of the session with the main group, spending the other half doing run throughs, agility work and kicking together. Ginbey finished with some solo laps at the end whilst Hough finished with the main group.
• Archer Reid, Harley Reid and Ash Johnson broke away from the main group at one stage to do some agility work but otherwise trained fully.

A couple of other things I noticed:

• Nic Nat was back in the coaches gear, and at the end of the session took Archer Reid and Jack Williams through some body work (could be because our existing rucks are either not back yet (Flynn) or restricted (Barnett, Bailey Williams)).
• Harley has lost the cornrows which made him a lot easier to spot today (good thing there were no media today as that would've been on the back page tomorrow). As an aside, he looked strong and fully fit to me today and showed no signs of any injury - saw his trademark explosiveness on a couple of occasions which was nice to see.

 

[bzparkes]

I must be famous though. I was playing Battlefield 6 last night and someone asked if I posted on Bigfooty. I said yes but they never said who they were...

 

[jdisc]

Just sinking in...I've been watching Crippa play footy (to some extent) since I was 2 years old. Glad he got another year, and hope he gets a big farewell game near the end to send him off properly. Underrated career and will go out a legend of the club. Looking forward to what he brings to the AFL and hopefully the WAFL too in the meantime.

2-year-old WCE_2007 analyzing Cripps' running patterns and defensive pressure in the forward half

 

[Mr Q]

I was in my 20s (OK, 29) when I signed up here. I'm now in my 50s.

(To be fair, I only really reactivated my dormant account a few months back)

 

[jdisc]

I must be famous though. I was playing Battlefield 6 last night and someone asked if I posted on Bigfooty. I said yes but they never said who they were...

you paid $110 AUD for another generic first person shooter

 

[LittleFires]

Yes and no. Signing to official press release is clearly delayed for all players for "reasons" (AFL approval, finding a good media window, etc...but also not really important to this point)...so someone somewhere would be maintaining an excel spreadsheet with this type of thing in it. They probably went on leave at the end of the season before the official clearances came in, then everyone kinda just forgot about it once the draft stuff took over.

Ideally it's the sort of thing you'd think they should have reminders set up to track but that requires some serious organisation and co-ordination likely between different people which is rare in even the most well-oiled companies let alone an AFL club media team which would be shockingly small, if not flush with "jobs for the boys" type hires (after all, what kind of degree do you need to put "professional instagrammer" on your CV?).

You make some decent points - I wouldn't be surprised if the media department is a little understaffed. But if it's easy enough for a nuffy like me to keep track of these things, surely someone who's paid to keep the fans updated could remember to actually do that...

 

[Byron_Clanger]

• Harley has lost the cornrows which made him a lot easier to spot today (good thing there were no media today as that would've been on the back page tomorrow). As an aside, he looked strong and fully fit to me today and showed no signs of any injury - saw his trademark explosiveness on a couple of occasions which was nice to see.

Truly the end of an era for the club.

 

[THE A5]

I've been on this site since I was 20.

I'm still 20.

Looking forward to making friends on the way to our 2030 flag.

**** thats a long time mate. I’ve only been here for 11-10 years

 

[THE A5]

Wow...I thought we were friends not just jousting partners

Me and bender are jousting partners of the night time

 

[NeedForTheReids]

Ha, you thought I wasn't crazy enough to do that again... luckily I found a better spot this morning and my eyes weren't hurting as much by the end.

The final session of the week was reasonably light, lasting a little under 2 hours and there were no media present. When I arrived at 9:00 they had already started, so I'm not sure how long they had been going before then, but it did look like they were just warming up.

After some sprints and kicking practice they split into two groups and practised turning forward handball and kicking chains inside 50 into goals. They then did a drill training handball skills in congestion, before splitting into several groups and moving onto some more ball movement drills.

After this they split into two groups and seemed to be practising setting up their team defence against opposition ball movement - I heard Mini here reiterating the importance of communicating with each other to ensure they covered all loose players. This was definitely the longest-lasting drill of the session, with Mini emphasising to the players "don't get bored with this" and to continue searching for any improvements possible.

To finish, the players did some run throughs in groups and then split into smaller groups to work on fundamentals specific to their positions - key position players doing aerial contests, rucks doing tap work, smalls focusing on ground balls, etc. The players headed inside around 10:45.

The players got plenty of goalkicking practice today as well, with the drills broken up by 2-3 minutes of set shot work in between.

Details on who did/didn't train:

• Brockman, Kelly, Cripps, Graham, Flynn, Cole, Young and Starcevich were the players I didn't see
• Ash Johnson and Archie Watt were out there again, so a total of 32 on track today
• Liam Baker made his first appearance of the preseason and did almost all of the session, only sitting out of one drill to do some tackling work with Waterman (who also trained fully apart from that)
• Bailey Williams probably did the least of the players I saw, and was restricted to laps/run throughs at a light pace. He disappeared about 30 minutes into the session but came out again later to do some light tap work with Barnett
• Barnett also spent the session away from the main group doing run throughs (some at pretty decent speed) and kicking. Seemed to finish up around 40 minutes in but then came out again with Bailey Williams for some ruck work. He was sporting a pretty heavy left leg brace but was running at a decent pace - didn't always look super fluid when running but some of that might be down to him being a pretty big guy.
• Yeo and Dewar spent the first 45ish minutes of the session doing run throughs away from the main group before some relaxed kick to kick to finish.
• Duggan warmed up with the main group but spent most of the session running laps before joining Yeo and Dewar for a kick towards the end.
• Gross was once again put through his paces with a big running session, doing run throughs and laps by himself for the first hour of the session before joining the main group at the end with their run throughs.
• Hough (right shoulder strapped) and Ginbey did about half of the session with the main group, spending the other half doing run throughs, agility work and kicking together. Ginbey finished with some solo laps at the end whilst Hough finished with the main group.
• Archer Reid, Harley Reid and Ash Johnson broke away from the main group at one stage to do some agility work but otherwise trained fully.

A couple of other things I noticed:

• Nic Nat was back in the coaches gear, and at the end of the session took Archer Reid and Jack Williams through some body work (could be because our existing rucks are either not back yet (Flynn) or restricted (Barnett, Bailey Williams)).
• Harley has lost the cornrows which made him a lot easier to spot today (good thing there were no media today as that would've been on the back page tomorrow). As an aside, he looked strong and fully fit to me today and showed no signs of any injury - saw his trademark explosiveness on a couple of occasions which was nice to see.

Another day another brilliant write up mate. The team defence drill you mentioned with mini making his presence felt with his words, you reckon this might become a regular drill you’ll see? It’ll be interesting how we play it and from there off the rebound.

Reckon grossy hasn’t stopped running all week he’s been going non stop. Excited to see him in match sim when the time comes.

Ash Johnson and Archie watt being out there regularly is crucial for not just their development but also their leadership in terms of being in an afl pre season environment… these are the type of players the beagles need.

Rest up your eyes and fingers over the weekend, you’ve earnt it mate

 

[bzparkes]

you paid $110 AUD for another generic first person shooter

Nah it's pretty good. I haven't really liked any of the ones I've played since BF2 though(BF4 & BF1), so at least this one's much more like the first 2. It's fine for casual fun. I'm not really that much into FPS myself.

 

[bzparkes]

Ha, you thought I wasn't crazy enough to do that again... luckily I found a better spot this morning and my eyes weren't hurting as much by the end.

The final session of the week was reasonably light, lasting a little under 2 hours and there were no media present. When I arrived at 9:00 they had already started, so I'm not sure how long they had been going before then, but it did look like they were just warming up.

After some sprints and kicking practice they split into two groups and practised turning forward handball and kicking chains inside 50 into goals. They then did a drill training handball skills in congestion, before splitting into several groups and moving onto some more ball movement drills.

After this they split into two groups and seemed to be practising setting up their team defence against opposition ball movement - I heard Mini here reiterating the importance of communicating with each other to ensure they covered all loose players. This was definitely the longest-lasting drill of the session, with Mini emphasising to the players "don't get bored with this" and to continue searching for any improvements possible.

To finish, the players did some run throughs in groups and then split into smaller groups to work on fundamentals specific to their positions - key position players doing aerial contests, rucks doing tap work, smalls focusing on ground balls, etc. The players headed inside around 10:45.

The players got plenty of goalkicking practice today as well, with the drills broken up by 2-3 minutes of set shot work in between.

Details on who did/didn't train:

• Brockman, Kelly, Cripps, Graham, Flynn, Cole, Young and Starcevich were the players I didn't see
• Ash Johnson and Archie Watt were out there again, so a total of 32 on track today
• Liam Baker made his first appearance of the preseason and did almost all of the session, only sitting out of one drill to do some tackling work with Waterman (who also trained fully apart from that)
• Bailey Williams probably did the least of the players I saw, and was restricted to laps/run throughs at a light pace. He disappeared about 30 minutes into the session but came out again later to do some light tap work with Barnett
• Barnett also spent the session away from the main group doing run throughs (some at pretty decent speed) and kicking. Seemed to finish up around 40 minutes in but then came out again with Bailey Williams for some ruck work. He was sporting a pretty heavy left leg brace but was running at a decent pace - didn't always look super fluid when running but some of that might be down to him being a pretty big guy.
• Yeo and Dewar spent the first 45ish minutes of the session doing run throughs away from the main group before some relaxed kick to kick to finish.
• Duggan warmed up with the main group but spent most of the session running laps before joining Yeo and Dewar for a kick towards the end.
• Gross was once again put through his paces with a big running session, doing run throughs and laps by himself for the first hour of the session before joining the main group at the end with their run throughs.
• Hough (right shoulder strapped) and Ginbey did about half of the session with the main group, spending the other half doing run throughs, agility work and kicking together. Ginbey finished with some solo laps at the end whilst Hough finished with the main group.
• Archer Reid, Harley Reid and Ash Johnson broke away from the main group at one stage to do some agility work but otherwise trained fully.

A couple of other things I noticed:

• Nic Nat was back in the coaches gear, and at the end of the session took Archer Reid and Jack Williams through some body work (could be because our existing rucks are either not back yet (Flynn) or restricted (Barnett, Bailey Williams)).
• Harley has lost the cornrows which made him a lot easier to spot today (good thing there were no media today as that would've been on the back page tomorrow). As an aside, he looked strong and fully fit to me today and showed no signs of any injury - saw his trademark explosiveness on a couple of occasions which was nice to see.

Thanks for the report but you missed the fact that I gave you the set up to post the most unfunny thing ever..

 

[KERRPOW]

Some pretty ugly footage in this vlog. You'd hope Shuey and co are aware how amateurish this is, it's one thing not having the players, not having a well thought out strategy is something else.

this is one of the issues having your stoppage/mid coach directly go straight into coaching within the same organisation.