GoodFootyNorth
Team Captain
As part of the early indoctrination process, we took the baby to training this morning.
Notable absentee was David Hale, of whom there was no sign at all. JWS just did running (he must be mighty bored of that). Doing injury recovery type work were Ross, Greenwood and the new guy with the Dale Thomas haircut (very un-North Melbourne - when will they rig some team betting thing to make him shave it?) Other than that they basically trained as one big group, and trained for quite a while.
As well as the usual drills, they seemed to spent quite a lot of time on a full-ground exercise which involved moving the ball quickly and pretty centrally. This was promising from a game-plan point of view and at times looked good.
They then spent quite a lot of time on a semi-match play drill. Sadly, in contrast to the earlier drill, we seemed to be practising a lot of chipping the ball short and wide, with heaps of players in one part of the ground; with occasional switching to the other, empty side of the ground. Not only is this boring, but also unlikely to succeed on match day, given the skill level on display today (and indeed on any given day North plays football).
Perhaps this was us practising the infamous rolling zone. I've been overseas for the last year or so, watching footy on TV, so haven't seen much of it. Whatever we were doing, there was heaps of intervention from the coaches in the set-ups during the match play.
In the absence of Hale, "senior" forward line seemed to consist of Petrie, Smith, Watt and Campbell, with Lower and Ziebell rotating through there at times. Harris seemed keen and looked good to me - much the sharpest guy on the track - so fingers crossed he may have turned the corner.
In other news, watching some skills training later which consisted of passing to leading forwards over about a 30 metre distance, I can say that McMahon and Campbell are both lovely kicks, Rawlings was surprisingly accurate over a short distance (not sure why he kicks long so much in games), Lindsay Thomas has a technical problem with his kicking that means he shanks about one in three, and Azza has amazing hands. But, Rawlings aside, none of that is news to anyone.
Notable absentee was David Hale, of whom there was no sign at all. JWS just did running (he must be mighty bored of that). Doing injury recovery type work were Ross, Greenwood and the new guy with the Dale Thomas haircut (very un-North Melbourne - when will they rig some team betting thing to make him shave it?) Other than that they basically trained as one big group, and trained for quite a while.
As well as the usual drills, they seemed to spent quite a lot of time on a full-ground exercise which involved moving the ball quickly and pretty centrally. This was promising from a game-plan point of view and at times looked good.
They then spent quite a lot of time on a semi-match play drill. Sadly, in contrast to the earlier drill, we seemed to be practising a lot of chipping the ball short and wide, with heaps of players in one part of the ground; with occasional switching to the other, empty side of the ground. Not only is this boring, but also unlikely to succeed on match day, given the skill level on display today (and indeed on any given day North plays football).
Perhaps this was us practising the infamous rolling zone. I've been overseas for the last year or so, watching footy on TV, so haven't seen much of it. Whatever we were doing, there was heaps of intervention from the coaches in the set-ups during the match play.
In the absence of Hale, "senior" forward line seemed to consist of Petrie, Smith, Watt and Campbell, with Lower and Ziebell rotating through there at times. Harris seemed keen and looked good to me - much the sharpest guy on the track - so fingers crossed he may have turned the corner.
In other news, watching some skills training later which consisted of passing to leading forwards over about a 30 metre distance, I can say that McMahon and Campbell are both lovely kicks, Rawlings was surprisingly accurate over a short distance (not sure why he kicks long so much in games), Lindsay Thomas has a technical problem with his kicking that means he shanks about one in three, and Azza has amazing hands. But, Rawlings aside, none of that is news to anyone.
I blame sleep deprivation. Let me work out how to edit my original post, then you can delete yours, and I'll delete this one, and we'll never speak of it again.
