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Training 2022 Training Reports

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With Dixon now signed, largely because of a good showing against Cox in the scratchie, I hope Cox absolutely smashes him in #2.


Hopefully its like Tom Lee kicking 6 or whatever it was against Zac Dawson in a scratchy. I don't think Lee kicked another 6 in his AFL career after that.

I think Dixon will go well though, with the massive proviso of remaining a hard worker, which he obviously has been this preseason.
 
I have been doing this for each team (I have completed 8 clubs at this stage). Obviously, things may change between now and 9th March
It is easy enough to extract the data when the team for Round 1 is announced

As for the entire squad:
Average age (as of today - not the end of the year): 24.05 years old

Breakdown of age groups using the quoted brackets:
Note 1: Each player's age is calculated by what their age will be on the last day of 2022 (i.e. A player who won't turn 25 until the end of the year is still listed as 25 years old)
Note 2: Each bracket is listed from the oldest player to the youngest by birthdate (e.g. In the 27-31 age bracket, Walters is the oldest player and Aish is the youngest)

32+ [1]: Mundy(37)
27-31 [11]: Walters(31), Colyer(31), Fyfe(31), Wilson(29), Lobb(29), Hamling(29), Taberner(29), Hughes(28), Pearce(27), Acres(27), Aish(27)
22-26 [16]: Ryan(26), Blakely(26), Switkowski(26), Tucker(25), Schultz(25), Banfield(24), Logue(24), Meek(24), Darcy(24), Cox(24), Brodie(24), Crowden(23), Brayshaw(23), Sturt(22), Frederick(22), Clark(22)
18-21 [13]: Serong(21), Young(21), Henry(21), Chapman(20), O'Driscoll(20), Worner(20), Treacy(20), Western(20), Walker(20), Johnson(19), Amiss(19), Benning(19), Erasmus(19)
I kept the stats across three seasons 2016-2018 (thought it was more, maybe I've got a more complete set stashed away somewhere). I used to source the player data from the team lists via AFL/clubs websites. I was thinking of restarting it this year, but they've removed the option of getting all the player data in a list form, which makes it harder to gather that data in the same format (bloody Champion Data & Craig Hutchison). So I'm having to think about whether I can be bothered. Checking back I used to use slightly different data bins (I think this table must be from one of the rounds in 2018 maybe):

Team0-20 yrs21-23 yrs24-28 yrs29-36 yrs
Port Adelaide
1​
6​
11​
4​
Hawthorn
1​
5​
10​
6​
Richmond
2​
4​
13​
3​
Essendon
2​
5​
12​
3​
Greater Western Sydney
2​
6​
12​
2​
Geelong
2​
5​
11​
4​
North Melbourne
2​
4​
11​
5​
Adelaide
2​
5​
8​
7​
West Coast
3​
4​
10​
5​
Melbourne
3​
9​
7​
3​
Collingwood
4​
5​
9​
4​
St Kilda
4​
6​
8​
4​
Sydney
4​
6​
7​
5​
Carlton
5​
6​
7​
4​
Western Bulldogs
5​
12​
4​
1​
Gold Coast
6​
5​
9​
2​
Brisbane
6​
8​
5​
3​
Fremantle
6​
7​
4​
5​
 
Hopefully its like Tom Lee kicking 6 or whatever it was against Zac Dawson in a scratchy. I don't think Lee kicked another 6 in his AFL career after that.

I think Dixon will go well though, with the massive proviso of remaining a hard worker, which he obviously has been this preseason.
I'm not worried about Dixon. I'm worrying about Cox, especially if he is being preferred to Hamling.
 
Whenever pre season optimism flows through my body, to the point it's spurting out my ears, the whole concept of "kicking goals" is what I use to stem the flow.

I love what we're doing, I love the talent, I love the apparent sense of determination and self drive from the playing group, I love the look of the game plan...I'm just not sure we can kick enough goals, and even if somehow we do, I really can't see off who's boot they will come.

Kicking goals is the the ying to my pre season optimism's yang.
CB48BBAE-2C18-4944-B76E-EAED78BDA6FA.jpeg
 

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Yeah the Roar pre-season spiel on Freo was pretty spot on.
Enigmatic, yes, Inconsistent, um yes !
I do think the brains trust is different now though. Longmuir could be the one to take us to the Promised Land
 

Treacy playing Peel again


Darcy, Mundy, Walters, Ryan to play

Fyfe possible on limited minutes


No mention of Aish and Erasmus would say they are unlikely


Top ups likely to be from Peel but may possibly be from all of WAFL (for general season Covid)
 
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I guess if you're really struggling to pick a starting midfield and Erasmus is no chance for round 1 then you might have to leave him out. I want him to play, badly, but if our best young player is forced to play Peel then we're in an unreal spot re depth.
For me has has more upside than Tucker so I would be playing him ahead. But Ras is clearly not ready yet so happy to leave him out until he is.
 

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I guess if you're really struggling to pick a starting midfield and Erasmus is no chance for round 1 then you might have to leave him out. I want him to play, badly, but if our best young player is forced to play Peel then we're in an unreal spot re depth.
From memory Serong didn't debut round 1 either.
 

Exciting article. The bit I like most is this:

"It was the first time we were able to see a combination of the 2020 and 2021 styles of play and it looked incredibly dangerous."

Only pre-season, can easily get carried away or caught up in the hype, but it feels.....like it's coming together. The is a feeling there, it's not going away...I'm starting to get more excited than my brain ought to know better than allow haha
 

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I posted this is another thread just after the Sydney game in R19 last year - but I'm even more convinced of this after this pre-season - especially as we (touch wood) are having a Brisbane-like run without injuries:



Here's an alternate take to all the doom and gloom. We're going to do a Brisbane Lions.

Fagan had two seasons (2017 and 2018) with a young list, coming off a rebuild, cruelled by injuries and they managed 5-17 records in each year.

He progressively addressed key issues in the team over those two years, first defence and then front half connection. In 2018, they were tracking better than a 5-17 record but fell away at the end, losing five of their last six.

Following a successful trade period (IN: Neale, McCarthy, Adams; OUT: Beams) and pre-season where most players were fit they had a cracking season, they jumped into the top half of the eight in 2019, making finals for the first time in ten years. They are now on track for their third consecutive finals series (all top 4 finishes).

JLo has come in as a rookie coach and has to contend with first COVID and then the worst injury hit list in the comp. Despite this (and acknowledging this is an unusual year) we are still in finals contention with four rounds to go - for the first time in six years. We also currently sit higher than the other four teams who brought in a new coach for the start of 2020.

In 2019 we ranked 13th for inside 50s and in 2020 we ranked 17th for inside 50s. We are currently in the top 8 for inside 50s, and were 3rd/4th prior to the last two rounds. In comparison, Brisbane were ranked 17th for inside 50s in 2018 and second in 2019.

We currently rank 6th for clearances, having ranked 15th in each of the previous four seasons. Brisbane climbed from bottom half in this stat, to 9th in 2018 and then second in 2019.

On most metrics we have significantly improved this year compared to the previous 4-5 years. The only stat we are way behind on is tackles - but we have been in the bottom three of the comp for tackles for the last five seasons - so this is not a JLo phenomena. But this is important, in each of their three premiership years, the Tigers have been in the top four for tackles.

How many times this season have we been the dominant team, only to let either the fumbles or kicking inaccuracy give the opposition a way back into the game? In contrast, how many times in the last five years have we been the dominant team in any games?

All of the signs are there that we are going to jump into the eight in 2022, even if we lose Cerra - just as long as we can avoid another run of injuries like this year.

Come on folks - join me on the glass is half full side of life - it's a much happier place to be.
Stupendous post, I really like it, feel it...agree with it. I don't know if I missed it first time round but thank you for re-sharing, it resonates with me. The glass is more than half-full I reckon, the cup may be about to overfloweth.....cyber high five for you.

Brilliantly and beautifully expressed; nice one :)
 
This feels like a healthy re-balancing of the attitude in this thread, but I'm hoping we land as a whole on the positive side of the ledger. I don't think we're sh*t - I think that's a bit excessive.

We're certainly unproven but I think the enthusiasm comes from the expectation that we will take an important step because:

1. We've had a charmed run with injuries through pre-season. This seems to be the most important time to have continuity. Players that complete an entire season off an interrupted pre-season seem to struggle, but players with a proper pre-season seem to have a better run at staying on the park, and seem to be much better when they are on the park.

2. We have competition for spots across the board. To an extent this is linked to point 1, but it's also due to what seems like a decent level of improvement across a tonne of our young players. Yes, we've been competing either against ourselves or against the Weagle's C team, but we talk constantly about how premierships are won by the bottom 10 players not the top 5. We currently have a list that has 20 odd players vying to be the bottom 10, which feels like something we've never had before.

3. We've got a revamped coaching team. Particularly, we've gone away and aggressively targeted coaches that can address our deficiencies. The addition of Graham and LeCras was probably my favourite off-season move. The fact that we stuck with Hale for, what, 6 or 7 years began to seem like a form of insanity.

4. We actually saw the implementation of skills and aspects of the game plan that we've been crying out for during the West Coast game. Ignoring the opposition and to a large extent the actual score, the timing of our forwards, the inclination of our mids to lower the eyes and spear passes to leading forwards and the constant switching of angles off half-back was just so exciting. Everyone knows we have to do this against real opposition when points are on the line, but surely this is the best we've looked for years.

5. Everything we saw in point 4 was done by our B team midfield. This shouldn't be ignored. We've been hauled over the coals by east coast pundits for years for being overly reliant on Fyfe, Mundy and Walters - the notion was essentially that we couldn't win games without one of them starring. What we saw was a whole of team effort, driven by our elite young players across the back line and midfield.

Overall, my personal view is that if we play to our potential we should absolutely challenge for the 8. Will we? No idea. But I think there is a happy middle ground between "we're sh*t" and "we're going to win a flag".

We should play some excellent football this year and I think it's going to be really fun to be a wharf :)
Another awesome, well written; balanced post with salient points but also a sense of the joy of what's about to unfold. Dead right, sit back fans and just soak in what's about to happen....could be a lot of fun, but even if we're 'disappointed' as fans it's the reason why we are, the belief that we'll get there, to that promised land...one day. It's the reason why we turn up. I think we've got every reason to feel optimism and excitement, it's in the air for sure
 
Going through the training photos from Optus today and it is becoming increasingly hard to put a lid on what seems possible this season. Whole squad looks fit as ****. Competition for spots looks like it might be immense this year. Crossing my fingers our KPF options can all step up because everything else looks pretty exciting imo.
 

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