I know it's a day late, but let me give you all my thoughts on training yesterday.
It was a great day for training and watching. No clouds, not too hot although the turf at Freo oval is probably due a mow, which really ruined the perfect day.
The first half of training (after the long warm ups) was a bunch of drills. Clearance work, F50 work, handball keepy-off etc. There were small groups all over the oval, doing the drills being led by the various coaches.
Positives:
- Sandi, Zac D, Griff, Apeness were all on the park for these.
- Darcy T was shadowing Sandi and basking in the greatness that is #211.
Negatives:
-to be honest, everyone was a bit sloppy - they looked tired and missed a lot of tight handpasses, shots on goal etc. No one in particular, but it was a bit untidy.
- no Neale, Ballaz (although he ran at full pace later), Balic etc - although there were a lot who came out in the rehab group later on.
Then the team broke into 2 groups and did 2 half oval match sims. This started to look a bit better, once the guys got free flowing on on the paddock. Zac D and Griff didn't do the match work, but pounded out laps, so I guess they're not 100%, but close to it.
All of the usual suspects looked good (SonSon, F7, the Hills, Johnno), but I really thought that Eddy Langdon has stepped up this summer - he was really unlucky not to win the Simpson Medal in the WAFL GF, and he's really come on from then. I think (based on WAFL finals and 2 training sessions, I've watched this year) that Eddy might be our break out kid this season.
Then they did 2 "quarters" of full ground match sims - somewhere about now Cam Mac disappeared from the track - he looked a bit ginger later on, so I wonder if he's tweaked something - although he had no strapping on when he came out later for his glamour shoot.
In the match Sims there were a few interesting positional choices.
- Fyfe Started at FF
- Tabs was playing CHF and clunking everything.
- Langdon HHF
- Lachie Weller of HB
- Apeness in the ruck (Sean D in the Fwd line)
I think the boys had really hit their straps here. In one play, both hills, Sonny and Ed langdon got involved which then saw Tabs clunk a good mark and slot a goal from 45m out - it looked really good.
Another good passage saw Johnno to Ed Langdon who threaded a pass to Darcy Tucker (who also was pretty impressive), who then kicked a goal.
After the ball work, the main group, swapped from boots to runners and pounded out another 45 minutes or so of running.
- Sammy collins looks like he's build his tank.
- Mundy struggled.
- Lots of running was done.
I think that's it.