I was at training today. I can confirm what Sherrif said; Smith and Grey were both pretty awful today. I dead set saw Smith miss a trainer with a handball from 6 feet away, not just wayward, completely over his head and behind him. How this guy is on an AFL list is beyond me. He landed one kick that I saw and everything else was on the ground or over blokes heads, not just making them reach but missing by miles. He telegraphs his kicks too, there was one play where he was twisting and turning and looking for an option and went he finally wound up for a kick I could have run from the stands and marked it by the time he got it on his boot. As it was Weller picked it off in front of the defender and found Pav in the square. Ross yelled out, thats good punish the mistake.
Another play that typifies the bad skills of time of our players Barlow was kicking from full back and after dithering with it for ages he went sideways allowing the defence to press up, Mzungu received and again dithered and went back to Barlow who proceeded to kick it straight to the opposition for a turnover goal. And some classic Taberner who after using his body brilliantly in a contested marking situation to get a perfect protected drop then couldn't close his arms around the ball and had it bounce off his chest. He's frustratingly close to being a good player . .
Grey did a lot right but some of kicking was indeed appalling. After one shocker he swore and dropped his head. He is a great defender but not really even as good as Spurr at using the footy.
On the positive side of the ledger I thought Ethan Hughes was terrific. He positioned beautifully outworked and outmarked Mayne several times and his disposal was really neat. He's coming on really well and really fast. I have him in the top line of players most likely to crack the 22 along with Weller and Langdon who were both excellent today. Langdon and Weller setup as outside mids today and both kicked lace out balls to the forwards at times.
Hill was BOG for me today. He just seemed to be everywhere and in the drills he always seemed to be doing that thing where he runs by for a receive and as he takes the ball he flares slightly to the left and accelerates like the kick of a sprinter going for the line and at full pace he will find a target with total precision. He is so much better than anyone else out there except Mundy and Walters with his skill and ball use.
Morabito is the other who seemed to be involved in the play every time I looked around. He really knows how to be in the right place (I remember being surprised at some of his opportunistic goals around stoppages). Because his brute strength and running is so impressive its easy to disregard how smart he is as a footballer. Like has been noted his kicking is a mixed bag with his long kicking mostly excellent but his short game does need work. He seemed to be playing as a defender which still puzzles me slightly as he is good around goal and can take a strong mark. I would have thought with our dearth of even medium height forwards he would be considered at that end of the ground.
Blakely is right in the thick of it in the midfield drills. He plays inside while Weller and Langdon are groomed as outside. I would say Blakely is less likely to crack the team soon as he's behind Mundy and Neale in the that role. Neale was solid today and some of his clearances were magic, unbelievably quick hands and his anticipation is top notch.
I really like the way they are training. Its very simple. They do kicking practice over various distances and tight handball drills in congestion and other than that its all ball movement and transition work. There doesn't seem to be any weird extraneous drills that characterised previous years. Its pure skills and ball movement.
I watched the forward group for a while which was Walters and Balla playing high kicking it in to Pav, Mayne,Tabs, Hannath and Crozier. The defenders matched with them were Smith, Silvagni (who I thought was pretty good), Dawson and Hughes. Ibbo was not sighted today and neither was Alex Pearce. Bennell as has been noted was walking laps.
Another play that typifies the bad skills of time of our players Barlow was kicking from full back and after dithering with it for ages he went sideways allowing the defence to press up, Mzungu received and again dithered and went back to Barlow who proceeded to kick it straight to the opposition for a turnover goal. And some classic Taberner who after using his body brilliantly in a contested marking situation to get a perfect protected drop then couldn't close his arms around the ball and had it bounce off his chest. He's frustratingly close to being a good player . .
Grey did a lot right but some of kicking was indeed appalling. After one shocker he swore and dropped his head. He is a great defender but not really even as good as Spurr at using the footy.
On the positive side of the ledger I thought Ethan Hughes was terrific. He positioned beautifully outworked and outmarked Mayne several times and his disposal was really neat. He's coming on really well and really fast. I have him in the top line of players most likely to crack the 22 along with Weller and Langdon who were both excellent today. Langdon and Weller setup as outside mids today and both kicked lace out balls to the forwards at times.
Hill was BOG for me today. He just seemed to be everywhere and in the drills he always seemed to be doing that thing where he runs by for a receive and as he takes the ball he flares slightly to the left and accelerates like the kick of a sprinter going for the line and at full pace he will find a target with total precision. He is so much better than anyone else out there except Mundy and Walters with his skill and ball use.
Morabito is the other who seemed to be involved in the play every time I looked around. He really knows how to be in the right place (I remember being surprised at some of his opportunistic goals around stoppages). Because his brute strength and running is so impressive its easy to disregard how smart he is as a footballer. Like has been noted his kicking is a mixed bag with his long kicking mostly excellent but his short game does need work. He seemed to be playing as a defender which still puzzles me slightly as he is good around goal and can take a strong mark. I would have thought with our dearth of even medium height forwards he would be considered at that end of the ground.
Blakely is right in the thick of it in the midfield drills. He plays inside while Weller and Langdon are groomed as outside. I would say Blakely is less likely to crack the team soon as he's behind Mundy and Neale in the that role. Neale was solid today and some of his clearances were magic, unbelievably quick hands and his anticipation is top notch.
I really like the way they are training. Its very simple. They do kicking practice over various distances and tight handball drills in congestion and other than that its all ball movement and transition work. There doesn't seem to be any weird extraneous drills that characterised previous years. Its pure skills and ball movement.
I watched the forward group for a while which was Walters and Balla playing high kicking it in to Pav, Mayne,Tabs, Hannath and Crozier. The defenders matched with them were Smith, Silvagni (who I thought was pretty good), Dawson and Hughes. Ibbo was not sighted today and neither was Alex Pearce. Bennell as has been noted was walking laps.
