Training 2025 Off-Season & Preseason reports and discussion

[TheFourPillars]

Just out off curiosity, How do you know his core strength is poor?

Watching him in contests at box hill and in pre season. It's only natural he is just 19

 

[Pinoy Hawk]

Some pics of Mitch and Blancky while in the US.

Below snippet taken from the Hawks website before they went to the US.
"Injured Hawthorn pair Mitch Lewis and James Blanck will travel to the United States next week to complete a rehabilitation block with internationally renowned reconditioning guru Bill Knowles.


The key position players will train at Knowles Athletic in Philadelphia where the American has built a reputation as one of the leading rehab experts in the world, using a unique approach to enhance recoveries from anterior cruciate ligament ruptures.


Knowles has more than three decades of experience and has been working with AFL players since two-time Geelong premiership player Max Rooke first visited Philadelphia in 2010, with players from another dozen clubs visiting since then."

 

[Tomohawks]

Some pics of Mitch and Blancky while in the US.

Below snippet taken from the Hawks website before they went to the US.
"Injured Hawthorn pair Mitch Lewis and James Blanck will travel to the United States next week to complete a rehabilitation block with internationally renowned reconditioning guru Bill Knowles.


The key position players will train at Knowles Athletic in Philadelphia where the American has built a reputation as one of the leading rehab experts in the world, using a unique approach to enhance recoveries from anterior cruciate ligament ruptures.


Knowles has more than three decades of experience and has been working with AFL players since two-time Geelong premiership player Max Rooke first visited Philadelphia in 2010, with players from another dozen clubs visiting since then."

Just seeing the size of the man in Lewis again with his athletic and marking abilities warms my heart with joy. This guy when fit can seriously help take us to a premiership. If we get him fit and firing it goes a long way to getting a flag.

 

[Lickmesocks]

I think it’s more to do with nous and strategy. Skaife looks bigger and stronger than Barrass but in one training session during a drill where they were kicking it long/high into a one on one situation TB pantsed Skaife just by protecting the space where the ball would drop, be coming in ….. then in the last second would spoil or mark. Looked like TB spent a lot of time providing feedback on body positioning, timing of when to commit to ball coming in etc to the young man. One thing for sure Skaify has got a great attitude to learn

I watched a training session where TB and Chol went head to head and same thing.

I reckon I watched 6x 1-1 contests and Chol didn’t stand a chance. You would think Chol was a chance with it coming in and then bang a slight move of the hip or body check at the last moment and TB would either kill the contest with a punch or take a mark .

We have a ripper on our hands.

 

[CHUBBSS]

I watched a training session where TB and Chol went head to head and same thing.

I reckon I watched 6x 1-1 contests and Chol didn’t stand a chance. You would think Chol was a chance with it coming in and then bang a slight move of the hip or body check at the last moment and TB would either kill the contest with a punch or take a mark .

We have a ripper on our hands.

Chol can dance around players, I hated seeing him not lead or provide some separation for the kicker in far to many plays, fingers crossed he isn’t coached this way

 

[The Chad and I]

Just seeing the size of the man in Lewis again with his athletic and marking abilities warms my heart with joy. This guy when fit can seriously help take us to a premiership. If we get him fit and firing it goes a long way to getting a flag.

Last season's hok-ball form + Lewis plays the full season = we win the premiership.

 

[Simon Crawshay]

Some pics of Mitch and Blancky while in the US.

Below snippet taken from the Hawks website before they went to the US.
"Injured Hawthorn pair Mitch Lewis and James Blanck will travel to the United States next week to complete a rehabilitation block with internationally renowned reconditioning guru Bill Knowles.


The key position players will train at Knowles Athletic in Philadelphia where the American has built a reputation as one of the leading rehab experts in the world, using a unique approach to enhance recoveries from anterior cruciate ligament ruptures.


Knowles has more than three decades of experience and has been working with AFL players since two-time Geelong premiership player Max Rooke first visited Philadelphia in 2010, with players from another dozen clubs visiting since then."

Geez Blanck is a sizeable unit these days isn’t he?

Actually both James and Mitch look in absolute top notch condition.

 

[threesixpio]

The fact that Blanky is in the wings is ridiculous re our depth.

 

[Sirlemsip]

The fact that Blanky is in the wings is ridiculous re our depth.

Once he's back from the US we should chain him to Barrass.
He's got 3+ years to learn from one of the best in the game - at which point he'll only just be entering his prime. The perfect replacement.

 

[Pinoy Hawk]

From --- https://www.afl.com.au/news/1265997/state-of-play-whos-injured-at-your-club

 

[kazzooka]

Once he's back from the US we should chain him to Barrass.
He's got 3+ years to learn from one of the best in the game - at which point he'll only just be entering his prime. The perfect replacement.

It's hard to keep an AFL ready player in the 2s for 3 years.

He's played 24 games of a possible 34, and then missed a season through injury. If he spends 3 years behind Barrass (and Barrass will only be 31 at the end of that 3rd season. so could go on longer) he will not be a an AFL player in 2028 when he will be 27 with less than 50 games.

Then he'd have to contend with Serong, McCabe and Mraz who are developing in the same position.

 

[barbster]

Once he's back from the US we should chain him to Barrass.
He's got 3+ years to learn from one of the best in the game - at which point he'll only just be entering his prime. The perfect replacement.

Blanck and TB are two completely different players. McCabe for mine would be the player that would benefit most from TB being at the club.

 

[oscarthegrouch]

I’m pretty sure someone mentioned it but cbs finding it, do we know of the Geelong praccy will be open to the public or not?

 

[Big Hotdog]

Sic had that time to build his core strength because other elite attributes

Elite psycho..loved his shit as a young'n

 

[matey]

Bit of robbing Peter to pay Paul …. switching McCartin forward (to cover McDonald injury) as he was probably one of the Swans best when we played them last year down back.

Swans forward in doubt for opener, Cox confirms captain's role

Swans forward Logan McDonald is set to miss the start of the 2025 campaign

www.afl.com.au

 

[Manila_Hawk]

Only 10 days until the Geelong practice game.

Only 20 days until we play the Doggies.

It's happening!

 

[earthworms]

Still crazy that we didn’t lose anyone significant from last year (sorry dgb) and we’ve added Battle and Barrass to the team. Young players will only improve off of last season. This is what will win us the premiership - running it back.

 

[hawkman]

Chol can dance around players, I hated seeing him not lead or provide some separation for the kicker in far to many plays, fingers crossed he isn’t coached this way

Like when Buddy would always try and wrestle Lake instead of leading, it would annoy me constantly. Although from 2014 on I thought it was a great tactic

 

[threesixpio]

Still crazy that we didn’t lose anyone significant from last year (sorry dgb) and we’ve added Battle and Barrass to the team. Young players will only improve off of last season. This is what will win us the premiership - running it back.

heck yeah

 

[Brant]

Not worried about the final scores in the practices games.

Agreed.
So long as we win by 10+ goals, Final Scores are irrelevant

 

[cyrilsez]

I'm on a cruise and refreshing every 30 mins for any snippet of info ...... needless to say I'm excited for 2025

Sent from my SM-S918B using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[Lord Lloyd]

I'm on a cruise and refreshing every 30 mins for any snippet of info ...... needless to say I'm excited for 2025

Sent from my SM-S918B using BigFooty.com mobile app

Great dedication Cyrilsez! Hope you are having a great time. Have great memories of a cruise about 7 years ago when while everyone went ashore at Port Villa a group of about 20 Hawks supporters stayed onboard at the bar and watched the Hawks beat the Cats by a point. There was only one Cats supporter watching and boy did we give it to him!

 

[Ned Ryerson]

Like when Buddy would always try and wrestle Lake instead of not leading, it would annoy me constantly. Although from 2014 on I thought it was a great tactic

Love how he and Spangher roughed him up in the first half. He still had some influence - but you could tell he was primed to put on a clinic that day and those two absolutely curtailed him.

'Where there's smoke, there's Bryan' - one of my absolute favourite pieces of commentary after Lake had casually forearmed Buddy in the back of the head.

 

[kazzooka]

Still crazy that we didn’t lose anyone significant from last year (sorry dgb) and we’ve added Battle and Barrass to the team. Young players will only improve off of last season. This is what will win us the premiership - running it back.

Ethan Phillips is the only player to depart that played an AFL game in 2024 and he only played 1. And we brought in 2x guaranteed best 22 players.

End of 2023 we lost Brockman, Ryan, Kosi. But ended up adding 6 players (ginnivan, mass, Chol, Gunston, dear and Watson) to more than make up for it.

 

[earthworms]

Ethan Phillips is the only player to depart that played an AFL game in 2024 and he only played 1. And we brought in 2x guaranteed best 22 players.

End of 2023 we lost Brockman, Ryan, Kosi. But ended up adding 6 players (ginnivan, mass, Chol, Gunston, dear and Watson) to more than make up for it.

Unfortunately Phillips probably wouldn't of made it onto our list if Blanck hadn't done his acl so he was likely to go anyways