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Training 2026 Preseason Thread

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Happy to give them all a fresh start under King, even guys I'm convinced are no good like Jefferson and Sparrow.

Regardless of what you think of any player they're in a completely new environment now, so lets give them at least one year to see what they can do.
Absolutely. Some players are coming from a fair way back though lol. But yes, fresh start and will be interesting to see who thrives and who doesn't.

But hey, we all look at the team and players slightly differently. Some here think Sparrow and Laurie are good players. We all have our players we defend and players we want to see delisted.
 
Training Monday, 15th Dec

Modified training:
  • No- training, just ball work. Viney, Matthews, Henderson, X.Lindsay.
  • Laps only: Shane McSidelines, Turner, Jiath, Mihocek, Melksham.
  • *AMW did a fair bit of full training maybe 90%. But it was a training session with minimal tackling today
  • Gawn is on some sort of modified training. He participated in most of the drills but broke off and did some more laps and he actually looked a bit hobbled when doing the laps. He looked not quite right. But he always returned to training. He just didn't have the free flowing running gait like usual. Running really tight in the upper body.
  • Langford fully participated but wore the concussion hat. As did Langdon.
  • Bowey not in attendance.

  • One of the drills was about picking the first option. A small section of the field coned off and each team had to basically just kick it to an open teammate without surveying other options. Max Heath's skills really struggled in this. His kicking is pretty yuck under pressure. Salem was good at it. Petty and Fritsch pretty good also.
  • Langford's energy was really up today. Joking and yelling out at others. It's good to see him feeling like he belongs.
  • X.Taylor also jelling with senior teammates quite well.
  • Onley did some nice things. The watch is probably his defensive transition running and his cleanliness in disposal by hand and then also by foot. But in terms of physique, he has the perfect frame. He also laid a big tackle in one of the drills and then got back up and got the ball back and got some pats on the bum from the players/coaches. Steele also put Onley down to the ground in one of the drills. Steele trained well.
  • Latrelle Pickett: Nothing new. Great movement and balance. Super quick sidestep. And neat skills. For someone so flashy I still find him hard to spot in training but when I do he is usually doing something good. He just looks like he can sidestep anyone when players rush at him. Surely is a round 1 lock.
  • JVR looking darn fit. Def lost some weight.
  • May is looking a bit off the pace.
  • On the flip side, I. feel like Tholstrup has gained a yard of pace. The test for him will be about awareness as he got caught a fair bit last season but he's in good shape. He's a player with good energy so it'd be nice if he found some form.
  • No goal kicking practice. just the odd pot shot torp off one step from 50m. I'll never understand it and I'm too old to try to understand it. But alas, nothing was done on it.
  • Culley really is training well. A ferocious tackler. Could be take a round 1 inside mid spot. That's the watch.
  • David Stiff was there on the sidelines, a former 6'9 Australian Bballer. He's a psychologist so maybe he was there as a sports psych? or maybe just has a personal connection to the club. Towered over Jason Taylor when talking to him.
  • Oscar berry moves pretty well too. Needs to shave his head in the next year, it's only just hanging on there :) But he has a pretty low centre of gravity for a guy over 190cm and his kicking is more than sound. The test will be all of the repeat running stuff I'd imagine.
  • Aidan Johnson is now officially Mr.'Under the radar'. No-one talks about him anymore. But he's training well.
  • I don't get too bogged down in talking about the specifics of each drill because they'r more or less the same. It's all just a glorified cardio session with footy's involved, either working on keeping the ball moving by hand or or by foot and hitting targets further up the field etc. I don't get too much from knowing the intricacies of each drill.

- A really generic 'Top 5 trainers for the day': 1- Chandler 2- Culley, 3- Windsor, 4- Tholstrup, 5-Sparrow/Kentfield.
 
Last edited:
Training Monday, 15th Dec

Modified training:
  • No- training, just ball work. Viney, Matthews, Henderson, X.Lindsay.
  • Laps only: Shane McSidelines, Turner, Jiath, Mihocek, Melksham.
  • *AMW did a fair bit of full training maybe 90%. But it was a training session with minimal tackling today
  • Gawn is on some sort of modified training. He participated in most of the drills but broke off and did some more laps and he actually looked a bit hobbled when doing the laps. He looked not quite right. But he always returned to training. He just didn't have the free flowing running gait like usual. Running really tight in the upper body.
  • Langford fully participated but wore the concussion hat. As did Langdon.
  • Bowey not in attendance.

  • One of the drills was about picking the first option. A small section of the field coned off and each team had to basically just kick it to an open teammate without surveying other options. Max Heath's skills really struggled in this. His kicking is pretty yuck under pressure. Salem was good at it. Petty and Fritsch pretty good also.
  • Langford's energy was really up today. Joking and yelling out at others. It's good to see him feeling like he belongs.
  • X.Taylor also jelling with senior teammates quite well.
  • Onley did some nice things. The watch is probably his defensive transition running and his cleanliness in disposal by hand and then also by foot. But in terms of physique, he has the perfect frame. He also laid a big tackle in one of the drills and then got back up and got the ball back and got some pats on the bum from the players/coaches. Steele also put Onley down to the ground in one of the drills. Steele trained well.
  • Latrelle Pickett: Nothing new. Great movement and balance. Super quick sidestep. And neat skills. For someone so flashy I still find him hard to spot in training but when I do he is usually doing something good. He just looks like he can sidestep anyone when players rush at him. Surely is a round 1 lock.
  • JVR looking darn fit. Def lost some weight.
  • May is looking a bit off the pace.
  • On the flip side, I. feel like Tholstrup has gained a yard of pace. The test for him will be about awareness as he got caught a fair bit last season but he's in good shape. He's a player with good energy so it'd be nice if he found some form.
  • No goal kicking practice. just the odd pot shot torp off one step from 50m. I'll never understand it and I'm too old to try to understand it. But alas, nothing was done on it.
  • Culley really is training well. A ferocious tackler. Could be take a round 1 inside mid spot. That's the watch.
  • David Stiff was there on the sidelines, a former 6'9 Australian Bballer. He's a psychologist so maybe he was there as a sports psych? or maybe just has a personal connection to the club. Towered over Jason Taylor when talking to him.
  • Oscar berry moves pretty well too. Needs to shave his head in the next year, it's only just hanging on there :) But he has a pretty low centre of gravity for a guy over 190cm and his kicking is more than sound. The test will be all of the repeat running stuff I'd imagine.
  • Aidan Johnson is now officially Mr.'Under the radar'. No-one talks about him anymore. But he's training well.
  • I don't get too bogged down in talking about the specifics of each drill because they'r more or less the same. It's all just a glorified cardio session with footy's involved, either working on keeping the ball moving by hand or or by foot and hitting targets further up the field etc. I don't get too much from knowing the intricacies of each drill.

- A really generic 'Top 5 trainers for the day': 1- Chandler 2- Culley, 3- Windsor, 4- Tholstrup, 5-Sparrow/Kentfield.
Thanks Dan
 

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Training Monday, 15th Dec

Modified training:
  • No- training, just ball work. Viney, Matthews, Henderson, X.Lindsay.
  • Laps only: Shane McSidelines, Turner, Jiath, Mihocek, Melksham.
  • *AMW did a fair bit of full training maybe 90%. But it was a training session with minimal tackling today
  • Gawn is on some sort of modified training. He participated in most of the drills but broke off and did some more laps and he actually looked a bit hobbled when doing the laps. He looked not quite right. But he always returned to training. He just didn't have the free flowing running gait like usual. Running really tight in the upper body.
  • Langford fully participated but wore the concussion hat. As did Langdon.
  • Bowey not in attendance.

  • One of the drills was about picking the first option. A small section of the field coned off and each team had to basically just kick it to an open teammate without surveying other options. Max Heath's skills really struggled in this. His kicking is pretty yuck under pressure. Salem was good at it. Petty and Fritsch pretty good also.
  • Langford's energy was really up today. Joking and yelling out at others. It's good to see him feeling like he belongs.
  • X.Taylor also jelling with senior teammates quite well.
  • Onley did some nice things. The watch is probably his defensive transition running and his cleanliness in disposal by hand and then also by foot. But in terms of physique, he has the perfect frame. He also laid a big tackle in one of the drills and then got back up and got the ball back and got some pats on the bum from the players/coaches. Steele also put Onley down to the ground in one of the drills. Steele trained well.
  • Latrelle Pickett: Nothing new. Great movement and balance. Super quick sidestep. And neat skills. For someone so flashy I still find him hard to spot in training but when I do he is usually doing something good. He just looks like he can sidestep anyone when players rush at him. Surely is a round 1 lock.
  • JVR looking darn fit. Def lost some weight.
  • May is looking a bit off the pace.
  • On the flip side, I. feel like Tholstrup has gained a yard of pace. The test for him will be about awareness as he got caught a fair bit last season but he's in good shape. He's a player with good energy so it'd be nice if he found some form.
  • No goal kicking practice. just the odd pot shot torp off one step from 50m. I'll never understand it and I'm too old to try to understand it. But alas, nothing was done on it.
  • Culley really is training well. A ferocious tackler. Could be take a round 1 inside mid spot. That's the watch.
  • David Stiff was there on the sidelines, a former 6'9 Australian Bballer. He's a psychologist so maybe he was there as a sports psych? or maybe just has a personal connection to the club. Towered over Jason Taylor when talking to him.
  • Oscar berry moves pretty well too. Needs to shave his head in the next year, it's only just hanging on there :) But he has a pretty low centre of gravity for a guy over 190cm and his kicking is more than sound. The test will be all of the repeat running stuff I'd imagine.
  • Aidan Johnson is now officially Mr.'Under the radar'. No-one talks about him anymore. But he's training well.
  • I don't get too bogged down in talking about the specifics of each drill because they'r more or less the same. It's all just a glorified cardio session with footy's involved, either working on keeping the ball moving by hand or or by foot and hitting targets further up the field etc. I don't get too much from knowing the intricacies of each drill.

- A really generic 'Top 5 trainers for the day': 1- Chandler 2- Culley, 3- Windsor, 4- Tholstrup, 5-Sparrow/Kentfield.

Thanks mate. What impressed you with Windsor at training?
 
Am I over-reacting or is the number of players not in full training pretty high?
Probably. I haven’t been to open training in a while, but the numbers seem pretty normal - if you go to other boards you’ll probably see the same. Pre Christmas is definitely a time to be conservative with anyone with the slightest niggle so long as their program has them building fitness.

Jan-Feb is when you start being alarmed about numbers in less-than-full training
 
Am I over-reacting or is the number of players not in full training pretty high?
Genuinely a bit concerned tbh. The general consensus seems to be King is pushing them really hard and we've already had at least 4 concussions - That in itself is not end of the world, but I think we've seen that Selwyn isn't up to it with that style of preparation. Burgess he is not. They somehow missed Bowey's foot injury and kept him running, and now Lindsay apparently has a foot niggle as well. Have 0 confidence in Selwyn to know where the limits are.
 
Genuinely a bit concerned tbh. The general consensus seems to be King is pushing them really hard and we've already had at least 4 concussions - That in itself is not end of the world, but I think we've seen that Selwyn isn't up to it with that style of preparation. Burgess he is not. They somehow missed Bowey's foot injury and kept him running, and now Lindsay apparently has a foot niggle as well. Have 0 confidence in Selwyn to know where the limits are.

Lindsay being hurt would be very shit - lost most of his preseason last year with injury.
 

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Genuinely a bit concerned tbh. The general consensus seems to be King is pushing them really hard and we've already had at least 4 concussions - That in itself is not end of the world, but I think we've seen that Selwyn isn't up to it with that style of preparation. Burgess he is not. They somehow missed Bowey's foot injury and kept him running, and now Lindsay apparently has a foot niggle as well. Have 0 confidence in Selwyn to know where the limits are.
Presumably I would think that if Selwyn isn't it, you'd think we'd be looking at other S&C Coaches out there by at the latest mid-next year.
 
Presumably I would think that if Selwyn isn't it, you'd think we'd be looking at other S&C Coaches out there by at the latest mid-next year.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if we had sounded out the market this year but there was no interest from anyone decent - In no small part due to our financial restrictions atm.
 
Presumably I would think that if Selwyn isn't it, you'd think we'd be looking at other S&C Coaches out there by at the latest mid-next year.
Obviously a few elements come into play, but I feel our 2nd halves under Selwyn have been poor. Maybe it was part game plan as well, but our injury management and seemingly lack of fitness has been a big problem. I feel we haven't run games out well at all for a long time.
 

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Training 2026 Preseason Thread

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