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

 

[Knifey Spoony]

More spoons in here than recent West Coast history

 

[JoshWoodenSpoon]

Sorry JoshWoodenSpoon - being a Josh and a WCE fan there is only one meme of a player to base a username off

Haha I had imagined you on a balmy Saturday night:

"Gosh that was a delicious Subway, they really are artists - would be great to have somewhere to share my insights..
Ah huh! bigfootball.com!! Seems like just the place. Sign up, eh? Guess I'll have to conjure the memory of a particularly niche player from a bygone era so my avatar stands out and they know I'm serious about sandiwches."

 

[NYJetsfor2029]

• Lindsay, Duff-Tytler, Rodriguez and Duursma were at the front of some of the earlier running drills in the second session - they're clearly very aerobically fit, especially at their age. Hall, McCarthy and Duggan also looked strong during the running

Very encouraging to see Lindsay running well. Just reading up on his draft profile and he mentions he models his game on Gulden, with his game IQ and skills, strong running is one thing he’ll really need to work on to be like Errol

 

[Barrybran]

Haha I had imagined you on a balmy Saturday night:

"Gosh that was a delicious Subway, they really are artists - would be great to have somewhere to share my insights..
Ah huh! bigfootball.com!! Seems like just the place. Sign up, eh? Guess I'll have to conjure the memory of a particularly niche player from a bygone era so my avatar stands out and they know I'm serious about sandiwches."

If you don't recruit this guy to the Bears, I will be very disappointed

 

[Byron_Clanger]

Was listening to 6PR Wide World of Sport tonight with Mark Readings and Jako was on tonight and he doesn't seem to think either CDT or Duursma will play round 1. 'I've been down to training and the size of those guys and how they look, they look miles off, or West Coast are in a deeper hole than I thought'

Is Jako turning into the new Summa or something? The f*ck?

 

[DorothyG]

Was listening to 6PR Wide World of Sport tonight with Mark Readings and Jako was on tonight and he doesn't seem to think either CDT or Duursma will play round 1. 'I've been down to training and the size of those guys and how they look, they look miles off, or West Coast are in a deeper hole than I thought'

Is Jako turning into the new Summa or something? The f*ck?

Its seems to be a trend for ex eagles in the media to be shitting and being overly critical of the club.

Perhaps it comes from frustration of what the club was when they were there and what it has become, or maybe it's just easy now to sink the boots in. We are a massive club and stiring the pot is sure fire way to get attention.

We are still going to have our days where criticism is warranted, but constantly shitting on the youngest list, who have undergone an unprecedented club wide transformation, is frankly, the basic line to push

 

[ghostbat12]

Was listening to 6PR Wide World of Sport tonight with Mark Readings and Jako was on tonight and he doesn't seem to think either CDT or Duursma will play round 1. 'I've been down to training and the size of those guys and how they look, they look miles off, or West Coast are in a deeper hole than I thought'

Is Jako turning into the new Summa or something? The f*ck?

have a look at how big Jako was as a player. NOONE is big enough to play afl.

 

[FKASC]

Its seems to be a trend for ex eagles in the media to be shitting and being overly critical of the club.

Perhaps it comes from frustration of what the club was when they were there and what it has become, or maybe it's just easy now to sink the boots in. We are a massive club and stiring the pot is sure fire way to get attention.

We are still going to have our days where criticism is warranted, but constantly shitting on the youngest list, who have undergone an unprecedented club wide transformation, is frankly, the basic line to push

Suma is a unique case but I reckon others just try too hard to win credibility by appearing hyper objective in criticising their former team

 

[WCEswift]

Was listening to 6PR Wide World of Sport tonight with Mark Readings and Jako was on tonight and he doesn't seem to think either CDT or Duursma will play round 1. 'I've been down to training and the size of those guys and how they look, they look miles off, or West Coast are in a deeper hole than I thought'

Is Jako turning into the new Summa or something? The f*ck?

Considering everyone else is in the exact opposite opinion its interesting

 

[THE A5]

Duursma will play over half our youngish players.

CDT i can understand

 

[isthiswhereitype]

Was listening to 6PR Wide World of Sport tonight with Mark Readings and Jako was on tonight and he doesn't seem to think either CDT or Duursma will play round 1. 'I've been down to training and the size of those guys and how they look, they look miles off, or West Coast are in a deeper hole than I thought'

Is Jako turning into the new Summa or something? The f*ck?

Jako we won one game last year, the hole can only be very marginally deeper

 

[pantskyle]

I'd be shocked if both CDT and Duurs weren't debuting round 1.

 

[wafooty2]

I'd be shocked if both CDT and Duurs weren't debuting round 1

Gut feel is it will only be Duursma of the draftees that will play from Rd 1. Seeing as CDT has played very limited amounts of AFL I think they will want to give him more time to develop in the WAFL.

 

[Keys]

Based on what I’ve seen so far both Duursma and CDT would be a chance for a R1 debut but neither should be considered a lock at this early stage

Still a long way to go and it remains to be seen how they perform when the intensity ramps up after the Christmas break

 

[RanaNaved]

NWM too skinny to play AFL, needs at least 5 pre-seasons according to Jako

 

[Elite Pete]

I noticed the Hawks and Bombers are still training today according to twitter.

Are the Eagles still training today? Just inside ect or coming back earlier.

 

[bzparkes]

I noticed the Hawks and Bombers are still training today according to twitter.

Are the Eagles still training today? Just inside ect or coming back earlier.

No training today, Monday was the final session.

With half the players being from Vic, I imagine they're giving them extra time for travel.

 

[Chris_6678]

Was listening to 6PR Wide World of Sport tonight with Mark Readings and Jako was on tonight and he doesn't seem to think either CDT or Duursma will play round 1. 'I've been down to training and the size of those guys and how they look, they look miles off, or West Coast are in a deeper hole than I thought'

Is Jako turning into the new Summa or something? The f*ck?

He does know new players can't just come in and put on 5-10kgs? IF they did that they would break down pretty quickly.

 

[bzparkes]

He does know new players can't just come in and put on 5-10kgs?

 

[LittleFires]

No signs of life here at MRP so looks like they’re done for the year.

Similar to Keys I’ll put together a summary of the preseason to date in the coming days.

 

[Keys]

I’ll further add that whilst Duursma is slender and will probably need to play a more outside role when he does play, there’s no way the sane could be said of CDT. Sure he’s not physically ready to play as a full time ruck or even as a no.2, but he’s absolutely ready to play as a third tall because his agility and skills allow that to be a viable option

He’s not the stereotypical skinny young ruck and is actually a pretty big lump of a lad already

 

[Ilkka Sinisalo]

Was listening to 6PR Wide World of Sport tonight with Mark Readings and Jako was on tonight and he doesn't seem to think either CDT or Duursma will play round 1. 'I've been down to training and the size of those guys and how they look, they look miles off, or West Coast are in a deeper hole than I thought'

Is Jako turning into the new Summa or something? The f*ck?

I do not believe for a minute that he has spent enough time at training to make any sort of informed opinion about how Duursma or CDT look as footballers. I'll put a lot more stock in the reports from people on this board who are going down and watching most training sessions or hell, even the dude from the Worst Australian who is doing the same, over Jako who probably rocked up for 5 minutes, saw that Duursma is skinny, and decided that he's nowhere near ready to play AFL.

 

[its_dave]

Thanks Keys and LittleFires for great reports. Eagerly awaited. Happy Christmas fellas and hope you both make the first training session next year.

 

[RanaNaved]

I do not believe for a minute that he has spent enough time at training to make any sort of informed opinion about how Duursma or CDT look as footballers. I'll put a lot more stock in the reports from people on this board who are going down and watching most training sessions or hell, even the dude from the Worst Australian who is doing the same, over Jako who probably rocked up for 5 minutes, saw that Duursma is skinny, and decided that he's nowhere near ready to play AFL.

I really doubt he has watched them train at all.

Sounds like he just rocked up in the first week when they're doing nothing, seen skinny teenagers and stormed off to tell Suma they're not putting in the work in the gym or something

 

[Goroyals22]

Its seems to be a trend for ex eagles in the media to be shitting and being overly critical of the club.

Perhaps it comes from frustration of what the club was when they were there and what it has become, or maybe it's just easy now to sink the boots in. We are a massive club and stiring the pot is sure fire way to get attention.

We are still going to have our days where criticism is warranted, but constantly shitting on the youngest list, who have undergone an unprecedented club wide transformation, is frankly, the basic line to push

You asked you got it.. Suma has made an appearance and Harley is already looking unfit as cooper Connelly looked in better nick in a photo and the first Harley is leaving at the end of 2026 prediction.