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

 

[Chris_6678]

Mitchell Woodcock

@Mitch_Woodcock
·
3m


West Coast forward Malakai Champion has gone down at training with a knee injury. More
@TheWestSport
soon

 

[Cuzz09]

ah damn. hope hes ok

small fwd stocks already depleted

 

[Farang83150]

Lovn Hewitt's physicality.

 

[Keys]

Bit of vision in each tweet of Malakai being assisted from the ground by trainers

Can only hope it’s not anything serious

 

[Rivoroo17]

Todays an open training right? Are they still out on field or winding down to do fan stuff?

 

[Farang83150]

Bit of vision in each tweet of Malakai being assisted from the ground by trainers

Can only hope it’s not anything serious

Initially walked off with trainers and seemed to be walking ok, just a bit of a hobble, trainer's wandered away from him before they got to the tents and didn't look overly concerned.
Fingers

 

[Ambrose Burnside]

Our small forward stocks are so bad.

 

[wirra44]

Would suck if it’s long term as we wouldn’t be able to replace him with a ssp due to him being cat b.

 

[Dark Sharks]

For sure, also the long greasy hair wouldn't help his acne condition, none of which has anything to do with his football skills of course. But he does seem to have lost his baby face, more matured, seasoned if you like. Looks like a prime mover now. With a couple of other big bodies in there to help (Yeo, Starch, Dev etc) feel like we're in for some exciting patches of footy ahead.

I'm possibly in the minority, but what ever the hell his new "hair/haircut" is sucks. Looks like someone Willie would smoke pot with.

The long hair and headband was his whole marketing image. Kids would replicate it all over, just like Naitanui's dreadlocks he refused to cut and kept for his entire career.

Wouldn't be surprised if Harley's already regretting the idea and planning on going back to it tbh.



I'll have to wait for PatFooty's take though.

 

[FKASC]

Club is having to rethink its entire marketing strategy now that Reid’s cut his hair

 

[bzparkes]

I'm possibly in the minority, but what ever the hell his new "hair/haircut" is sucks. Looks like someone Willie would smoke pot with.

The long hair and headband was his whole marketing image. Kids would replicate it all over, just like Naitanui's dreadlocks he refused to cut and kept for his entire career.

Wouldn't be surprised if Harley's already regretting the idea and planning on going back to it tbh.



I'll have to wait for PatFooty's take though.

They just need to sell a blonde version of this, bud.

 

[THE A5]

I'm possibly in the minority, but what ever the hell his new "hair/haircut" is sucks. Looks like someone Willie would smoke pot with.

The long hair and headband was his whole marketing image. Kids would replicate it all over, just like Naitanui's dreadlocks he refused to cut and kept for his entire career.

Wouldn't be surprised if Harley's already regretting the idea and planning on going back to it tbh.



I'll have to wait for PatFooty's take though.

Mate he’s gone from one generic style to another lol.

 

[Ambrose Burnside]

They just need to sell a blonde version of this, bud.

View attachment 2494047

Dicky Knee is all is see whenever Dustin is on screen in Stranger Things S5.

 

[bzparkes]

Mate he’s gone from one generic style to another lol.

Literally half the Geelong team has the same old hairstyle.

I think it's good he's no longer styling himself off his childhood football heroes.

 

[Dom sheed pocket]

Jeez, I like Clay Hall and all but it's over. Someone needs to pull him aside and let him know he's gotta give it up and shave.

Surprised he didn’t spend his off-season in turkey.

He could still save it, there’s still time!

 

[nameless]

I'm possibly in the minority, but what ever the hell his new "hair/haircut" is sucks. Looks like someone Willie would smoke pot with.

The long hair and headband was his whole marketing image. Kids would replicate it all over, just like Naitanui's dreadlocks he refused to cut and kept for his entire career.

Wouldn't be surprised if Harley's already regretting the idea and planning on going back to it tbh.



I'll have to wait for PatFooty's take though.

It's a shame the govt ban on kids using social media doesn't extend to Bigfooty...

 

[THE A5]

Literally half the Geelong team has the same old hairstyle.

I think it's good he's no longer styling himself off his childhood football heroes.

Yeah was gonna say. Plus I instantly think of Jorts/over sized t shirt and birkenstocks when I see that cut

 

[Dom sheed pocket]

What he did well was that he went back and did the basics well. He totally put away his offensive game, didn’t go for intercept marks. Started gaining confidence and gradually started to go for them marks. It was actually great to watch cause he was so mature and disciplined.

Eh no.

What happened was we started playing a Ginbey taller which impacted his offensive game (almost non-existent now) and Harry started taking oppo 3rd best forward.

 

[Dom sheed pocket]

What is Jobe's ceiling next season? Play every game and 30 goals is a reasonable target right. Assuming be plays every game is 25 goals his floor? Ceiling 40? 45? 60?(haha)

We have opened up some targets with Oscar/Liam leaving.

I'm really struggling to decide because he could be amazing if we had more ball forward of centre. But if our mids stink we might be unable to give him enough supply.

Ceiling would be somewhere around 40-45 similar to Amiss in his second year.

Caveat being we would need to be a pretty decent team to help get him to 40.

Realistically if he can get 30-35 it would be a good step forward.

Averaging a Goal per game would be a pass mark.

 

[jesterwester]

I think the thing for Jobe is not to put a number on goals- I feel that in itself is not a reflection of a year.

I feel for him his focus should be on his work rate. Making sure he provides a contest as a bare minimum and working to involve himself on the game outside of marking situations and doing the work to provide a lead up option and making himself dangerous enough to draw defenders away. His marking and competitiveness is definitely a trait and I think if we have that a base set of instructions with that in mind the actual goals will follow.

Having said that- Keeping Waterman fit will play a big role in us being more threatening next year and give him better looks at goals anyway. But a positive season for him next year isn’t about a numbers output IMO. Maybe in year 3 and beyond.

 

[amazingjoshy]

Eh no.

What happened was we started playing a Ginbey taller which impacted his offensive game (almost non-existent now) and Harry started taking oppo 3rd best forward.

Things that didn't happen for 100

 

[Astro7]

Getting Yeo back and Robertson in to help the inside mids will be a big help to that area. Won't be a silver bullet, but it's helping to close the huge gap we currently have.

Hopefully Champion and Tylah can help the forward line situation

not sure if they'll be an immediate fix, later maybe...

 

[Astro7]

I'm possibly in the minority, but what ever the hell his new "hair/haircut" is sucks. Looks like someone Willie would smoke pot with.

The long hair and headband was his whole marketing image. Kids would replicate it all over, just like Naitanui's dreadlocks he refused to cut and kept for his entire career.

Wouldn't be surprised if Harley's already regretting the idea and planning on going back to it tbh.



I'll have to wait for PatFooty's take though.

Not big on the generic Geelong hairstyle/headband look. He's got curly locks whether short or long - buzz cut it baby!

 

[LittleFires]

Not a heap of note to take away from this morning's session, which lasted about 90 minutes and focused on skills and not much running. I spotted most of the players on our list at some point but a few were on managed programs today.

The players came out just after 9am and after a brief warm up, got into a full-group drill practising kicking on the run. They then split into four groups, each working on a different skill - one on set shots, one on (contested) marking, one on ground balls/handballing and one on kicking. After this they split into three groups, with all three doing a drill working on handballing in congestion, one of which only had light contact.

Over the next 45 minutes they repeated this rotation (split into 4 groups for different skills then into 3 groups for handballing) twice, going through various skills under the guidance of the assistant coaches. At 10:30 they split into many smaller groups to work on some more specific craft/skills (one of the groups was working on marking a high ball while on their knees, one was curling set shots from the boundary, etc.), and the players had all finished up by 10:45.

Details on who did/didn't train:

• I didn't see Yeo, Hutchinson or Schoenberg today
• Going to be honest, I completely missed Champion's injury and only learned about it when I got home and checked this thread. I saw him early on in the session so I ticked his name off, but then didn't notice that he'd 1. injured himself and 2. missed the second half of the session. Not sure how I missed that tbh, but I suppose these things happen when you're trying to keep an eye on about 10 things at once
• Allen (knee) didn't do much today, limited to stationary kicking and handballing work and spectating during the session
• Bailey Williams (groin) and Gross (quad) began the session with some stationary handballing before moving to the grandstand for a bit of stair work. After this Gross did a bit of kicking with Allen before heading inside just before 10, while Williams spent about 40 minutes on the exercise bike, finishing around 10:30
• Brockman and Cole were on a managed program today, joining in for the non-contact handballing drills but spending time on the exercise bike when the group was split into 4 groups for the other skill work. Suspect this is load management more than anything
• Baker (hamstring) trained away from the main group, spending about 40 minutes doing run throughs (some while being held back by a trainer with a resistance band) and spending the rest of the session helping out with the main group's drills
• Barnett (knee) started the session with run throughs away from the main group but joined in with the main group for some bits and pieces - participated in one of the kicking drills and one of the non-contact handballing drills. Also completed some change-of-direction/agility work away from the main group, finishing up with some work on the grandstand stairs. Appears to be progressing well in his recovery
• Robertson (shoulder) warmed up with the main group but spent the following hour doing run throughs and laps by himself. Finished up about 30 minutes early
• Allan was sporting a cast on his left wrist and was in and out of the main session, joining for some of the lighter skill work and spending the rest of the time running laps or doing stop-start sprint/agility work with a trainer.
• Owies split off at one stage to do some run throughs but did most of the main session, though he trained with the non-contact group for the handballing drills.
• Duggan and Cripps were again managed through the session, starting with some time on the exercise bikes and spending the rest of the session participating in light drills or helping out with other drills.
• Kelly was outside for the whole session, but whenever they split into 3 groups for the handballing drills he would spend that time on the exercise bike instead. As one of our veterans I suspect they're just managing his training loads
• Young (shoulder) trained fully until around 10am, finishing with about half an hour on the exercise bike
• The draftees (minus Allen) and Harley Reid trained fully until around 10:20, when they finished up early.
• Waterman (hamstring) and Macrae stayed out until the end of the session but split off a couple of times to do a bit of contact work away from the main group. Otherwise trained fully
• Jack Williams, Dewar and Ginbey trained fully today, though Dewar trained with the non-contact group for the handballing drills

Like I said, a light session so not much to take away from it. A few random notes:

• Duff-Tytler was holding his own quite well against the talls in one of the marking drills and got some praise from one of the coaches - think it was Harry Taylor
• In one of the handballing drills Starcevich was chatting to the players before it started - couldn't hear what he was saying but you can already see how valuable his leadership, professionalism and experience from Brisbane will be for our young group.
• I spotted another of our AFLW players today later in the session - this time Loosh Painter, who was doing some run throughs with a trainer

 

[RanaNaved]

Is Harry Taylor "officially" a coach? Or is he employed as something else, and he "volunteers" his coaching services?

Rapt to have him coaching the talls, was one of the very best KPPs in his time