Hopefully someone else from here went today because I think this report will lack a lot of detail. Anyway I wandered down to training at about 10 30. I would have got there at 10 but this being the 1st training ive been to it took me a long time to find a place to park. Eventually I gave up trying to find the way into the oval and just parked on a side street 300 meters away and walked in. When I got there, the main group seemed to be doing a tackling drill while Burton, Hentschel and Douggie ran laps.
They then moved into full field drill where the players running through midfield would draw a player then handball over the top to a player who would deliver the ball to the forwards with players crumbing off them. The forward matchups down my end were Davis and Mckernan as one pair and Lee and Young as the other 2 (if my memory serves correct). They were both pretty even contests with the players switching from defender to forward. Otten really stood out in this drill for mine. He looks like a big key position player running down the field but then he will easily side step a small midfielder and accelerate away to deliver the pass.
After a running drill, half the players put on orange tops and the 1st of two scratch matches was played. I could only really tell what was going on at my end so I don’t have a heap to say here. These are my disjointed memories from the two games. The blue team was going to my end in the 1st match and they dominated. At one stage Walker tried to shrug off multiple players and managed to kick the ball to his teammate in Tippett while being tackled. Tippett snapped the goal. A few minute later Tippett got out on the lead to mark and goal. He was all by himself on the lead later but spilt the mark that time. Another thing that stood out is how hard Dangerfield goes at the ball. He just throws himself onto the ball with no regard to his safety. One occasion where he did this was met with praise by many. Seeing Henderson train, you wouldn’t know how little footy he’s played although a few times when he had marked the ball he wasn’t sure what to do with and took a long time to dispose of it. Better than just blazing away though. I think he will go well at SANFL level this year. McKernan took a few good grabs through the CHF position. Cant really remember much else that stood out from the matches.
Porplyzia spend pretty much the whole training having shots on goal. Douglas kept up with Burton during their runs while Hentschel lagged behind by about 10 meters.
Sorry about the disjointedness of the report and if I think of anything else note worthy then ill post it.
They then moved into full field drill where the players running through midfield would draw a player then handball over the top to a player who would deliver the ball to the forwards with players crumbing off them. The forward matchups down my end were Davis and Mckernan as one pair and Lee and Young as the other 2 (if my memory serves correct). They were both pretty even contests with the players switching from defender to forward. Otten really stood out in this drill for mine. He looks like a big key position player running down the field but then he will easily side step a small midfielder and accelerate away to deliver the pass.
After a running drill, half the players put on orange tops and the 1st of two scratch matches was played. I could only really tell what was going on at my end so I don’t have a heap to say here. These are my disjointed memories from the two games. The blue team was going to my end in the 1st match and they dominated. At one stage Walker tried to shrug off multiple players and managed to kick the ball to his teammate in Tippett while being tackled. Tippett snapped the goal. A few minute later Tippett got out on the lead to mark and goal. He was all by himself on the lead later but spilt the mark that time. Another thing that stood out is how hard Dangerfield goes at the ball. He just throws himself onto the ball with no regard to his safety. One occasion where he did this was met with praise by many. Seeing Henderson train, you wouldn’t know how little footy he’s played although a few times when he had marked the ball he wasn’t sure what to do with and took a long time to dispose of it. Better than just blazing away though. I think he will go well at SANFL level this year. McKernan took a few good grabs through the CHF position. Cant really remember much else that stood out from the matches.
Porplyzia spend pretty much the whole training having shots on goal. Douglas kept up with Burton during their runs while Hentschel lagged behind by about 10 meters.
Sorry about the disjointedness of the report and if I think of anything else note worthy then ill post it.
As I keep noting, he’s bulked up significantly from last season and he is just looks sharp out there. He’s extremely quick and has great acceleration, has a terrific vertical leap and he’s one of these guys that just covers a lot of ground and moves so smoothly. After seeing the footage of him last year I doubted his skills, especially by foot but they appear to be fine. I expect big things from Cook in the future and I think he’ll have a very successful season in the SANFL with South Adelaide. Given the improvement he has shown during the pre-season I wouldn’t rule him out making his AFL debut this year. I honestly think we’ve got a gem on our hands. 
Physically he looks good, he’s strong and certainly quick for his size but to me he seriously lacks football nous. 
