Went down to the training session today at Olympic Park. Some brief notes below.
- Only about 30 or so people on the track (none of the first years - I assume that Phillips, Wills, Crocker, Smith, Wyatt were all at an AFL Induction session, and Sier was at fat camp).
First activity - 2km time trial.
- Started out with a time trial, although only about 20-25 of the boys did it.
- Steele absolutely smashed it, was just a few seconds over 6 minutes by my count (which was just indicative as I missed setting the timer up for the first 250 metres). He was probably benefited from the fact that other time trial competition in the form of Philips and Smith weren't there, but he won by around 100 metres. Was a dominant run.
- Next was a group within 5ish metres of each other, taken out on the line by Crisp from Macaffer (both probably around the 6.25-6.30 mark), Gould, Varcoe, and De Goey (a couple of second behind that). De Goey was in clear second place for most of the run, but got swallowed up late.
- I was disappointed in the run of Adams in particular, was clearly trailing at the start (behind even Grundy) and only came on a bit during the run. Finished behind the likes of Witts and Gault I believe, and was the last midfielder to come in by a long way. I suspect there was something wrong with him.
- Last three were Cox (3rd last) in just over 7 minutes, Moore (2nd last) and Grundy (stone motherless last) in around 7.30 minutes.
- Those that didn't do it included Langdon, Marsh, Sharenberg, Swan, Treloar, Goldsack, Aish)
Modified Training
- Goldsack and Elliott ran 100 metre strides for most of the session, but didn't do any ball work.
- Treloar ran laps for the first part, then ran 100 metre strides, and some 300 metre strides, before going back to laps.
- Aish did some of the early ball work, and then joined Treloar for the 100 metre strides and 300 metre strides.
- White did most of the first half of the session, and then did strides
- Langdon didn't do much all session, but did some 100 metre strides for about 30 minutes.
- Sharenberg all stationary work for a bit, then disappeared.
- Broomhead did nothing but walked some laps.
- In addition to the newbies, didn't see Ramsay, Greenwood, Reid, Howe, although they may have been doing stationary work inside or somewhere I couldn't see them.
Actual training group
- Really standard, simple session to be honest, not much opportunity for too many people to stand out. Was just a basic skills session and then some modified match play.
- Not much to be able to report, but a couple of points to call out:
- Maynard looked quite good with his skills, better than I had given him credit for based on his games last year. Hopefully he can turn track skills into game skills.
- Cox presented as a pretty good target in some of the match play drills, took a couple of grabs on the lead and in semi contested situations. More importantly, was paced in the square for the activity, an indication of how Bucks sees him coming in probably. Cloke and Gault were both further up the ground.
- I think Marsh's kicking seems to have improved a lot from a few years ago - hit a lot of good targets with great low trajectory.
- Fas looked sharp with his skills.
That's pretty much it to be honest. Nothing really to get too excited about, but there probably wasn't too much opportunity to impress given the nature of the drills. To b honest, I was a little disappointed there weren't more people closer to Sidey in the time trial, but I'm sure they pushed as had as they could.