Went to training this morning to watch the boys in the first session if the year. Some notes below.
Started out with a 2km time trial. Notes on the placings and some times below:
1st: Steele 5.54. Had a 60-70m lead the whole time.
2nd; Freeman 6.08. Also had a 60-70m lead from 3rd the whole time.
3rd: Mantiet 6.22. Fell straight into third from early on and held it. Was clear third for most of it, but got gobbled up towards the very end. Held off Varcoe in a sprint at the end.
4th: Varcoe 6.23.
5th: Pendles
6th: Crisp
2nd Last: Kennedy. Struggled the whole way. Was back with three ruckman for most of the run, made some pushes to get back to the running pack, but eventually taken over again in the last 200m. Biggest weakness of his game, and likely to see him not make it.
Last: Grundy 7.24. A long way back.
Maynard and Goodyear were in the top half, which doesn't say much for the rest of the list (as Hine himself said Maynard isn't good aerobically..)
Other notes:
Not really much else exciting to report on - most the drills were pretty small / tight with no real opportunity to shine. As everyone says, Freeman looked really sharp - a lot of energy, really nice skills (surprisingly) and just got busy all the time. Crisp looked pretty good a lot of the session as well.
Scharenberg just ran laps, Swanny just sprinted laps, Thomas and Young mostly just ran laps, Mason Cox just ran laps for the whole session (I think he had some injury in his hand). No signs of Marsh, Moore, De Goey.