I rode down to watch the boys train this morning, but didn't arrive until 10am.
The Moreton Bay fig was empty, owing to some dark clouds overhead, but it didn't rain the entire time we were there. So I joined the watchers at the club rooms. Good to see so many familiar faces, but there were so many I didn't catch all the BigFooty aliases.
The first drill I saw when I arrived seemed to be a transition one: moving the ball out of defence and into the forward line as quickly and effectively as possible, by a kick to a free player and hand pass to player running past who then delivers by foot into the forward line. When it worked it looked good - this is when my buddy de Boer shone; I didn't see him miss a kick or handpass. But generally, there were a lot of fumbles and kicks to the feet of receiving players, which was a little disappointing.
Some groups broke up into hand pass drills, while others continued with footskill drills. I was impressed with Weller's speed with handpassing and his kicks seemed pretty good too.
Later on there was a game simulation, which didn't go long but was enjoyable to watch.
There were a few moments that stood out for me.
Collins beat Pavlich in a marking contest, and followed it up with a nice clearance.
Spurr's turnover across the face of goal was as bad as
salim malik described, but towards the end of the session, he kicked a super goal from the boundary line and looked quite chuffed with himself.
Morabito looks the goods: as
E Shed suggested, he knows how to find the ball. I like how he kicked a long pass diagonally out of fullback to set up a quick movement of the ball that ended in a shot at goal - the vision to spot a running player 50 metres away will be a great asset for the team.
Some players weren't as brave when they were trying to get out of the back line. They would kick backwards or pass the responsibility to another player with a short handball, which meant that the ball got bottled up in the back line. Maybe this was good defence by the opposing players in the simulation, but I think it was more likely a lack of movement by players up the line, and a lack of confidence in the player's foot skills.
Fyfe, Harley Bennell, Harley Balic, Alex Pearce, Apeness, Nyhuis and Clarke were all in the rehab group, while Lachie Neale stayed inside most of the time. I will happier when the rehab group gets much smaller.
There were some children decked out in purple hanging out for autographs and Johnson was the first to oblige, with Walters coming second. I forgot to mention SonSon's kicking - very good. Weller marked a ball at 40m in the match sim, and passed it to SonSon who was closer, but at a tighter angle. There was some criticism among the watchers that Weller didn't take ownership of the shot himself, but Walters slotted the kick from a fairly difficult angle.
Overall an enjoyable session. I left about midday.