I headed down to the training session this morning to see a real solid, 2.5 hour workout by the boys. The session was a bit more varied than what I saw before Christmas which was good to see, and they all looked fairly fit.
First thing's first, Van Berlo was out and running
Gee, he looks like a unit too, his upper body is absolutely enormous, he's clearly been working himself hard in the gym while he hasn't been able to run. Today he was running (albeit in a straight line only) and looked relatively unhindered. He was doing a bit of work with Martin, and neither of them have any strapping which was nice to see.
The main injured group was pretty small today - Donnelly (who seems to have some strapping over his left knee), Van Berlo, Symes and one other that slips my mind right now made up the core injured group. Bock was out doing running, along with Talia who already looks bigger than he did when he first came to the club a month ago and looks to be running brilliantly for a guy with supposed hamstring problems, and participated for part of the main training session but joined them later on, and (Scott) Thompson spent much of the session working individually with a trainer. He didn't seem to be hampered during the session but favoured his leg when he first came out so presumably he's a touch sore from a previous session or overstretched it or something. Luke Thompson also participated in much of the main session despite the shoulder strapping but occasionally joined the injured group.
I didn't see Porplyzia or Moran out there today - though I did see Moran in the cafe after the session, same as last time. He's obviously a fan
The session was broken into several game-day type events and specific drills, such as a drill where one side had to work the ball from one end of a marked area to another using only handball while another team tried to stop them. If the ball carrier had even a hand laid on him before he dished off the ball then they stopped the drill and restarted at the other end. The highlight for me was when Danger received the ball at one end from a trainer, put his head down, ran straight through two opponents, sprinted to the other end and handballed it to the other trainer, not even using a single one of his teammates
Speaking of Danger, I know I've said this before, but his teammates must hate him or something because they keep selling him into trouble Three or four times a ball was passed to him that fell a metre or two short, and whereas most players would then simply not be able to recover the ball, he'd dive into it and end up gang-tackled as soon as he got it
In the usual game-day drills it was clear that they were using three players, namely Cook, Sloane and Armstrong, as their go-to men when running out of defence. Usually one was off and the other two were on opposite teams so I guess the idea is they only have one of them playing the role. Armstrong in particular looked great, hitting the target all but one time, and Cook is a livewire, sidestepping and delivering. Sloane got involved in a lot of play and used his hands to good effect but his kicking let him down a touch.
Speaking of poor kicking, one of my favourite new players in James Craig let himself down a bit today with some poor kicking. It wasn't really Craig's day overall. At one point they had all the new guys (barring Talia, and of course Wright who is still overseas) running laps. Clearly in the lead right from the word go until they'd finished running several laps was Luke Thompson who looks fit as a fiddle. Gunston and Shaw came next, followed by Jaensch, then trailing a fair way behind was Riley, and then finally Craig He didn't look exhausted, I'm just not sure it's that easy to move his frame as fast as the others. It was good to see some of the young guys getting involved with leadership too, with Talia calling out to the boys encouraging them to keep running, and Jaensch was later going at the same pace as Shaw and calling "come on Shawy, one, two, one, two". I guess he's done a couple of preseasons (albeit at SANFL level) before and that would be good for Shaw who has come straight out of the juniors. At one point Van Berlo was running with Craig to help set the pace too, great to see.
Riley looks small out there He's only young and has come from a nothing comp so he's a good couple of years away, and he's got something going for him, but he really looks like a boy among men even in our young squad (admittedly full of young kids who look like they've been raised on a diet of steroid and red meat). He looks to me to be the lightest player on our list.
Towards the end of the session they were doing a drill where a player would kick out from the goal square to several players before rotating to receive the ball themselves. The receiver would then have to kick out to the wing to a player who would bring it back into the corridor where another player would then drive it forward to a contest between a key forward and key back. All the players would rotate throughout the positions and the key point of the drill was to use your voice, so you weren't allowed to dispose of the ball until you heard the voice. Sloane was good, encouraging everyone to "keep the voices up boys!", and it was a pretty positive drill overall. Young managed to pinpoint a few 50m kicks from the goalsquare which will make Drummond happy
I was trying to hear some of the nicknames but a lot of the new kids just seem to get called whatever goes through the mind of the receiver at the time. Riley was called Riley, Aiden, or something else I could never figure out throughout the session. Davis seems to have the nickname "Philthy". Rutten meanwhile has an awesome voice, it's this massive foghorning base voice that he booms out names with, hard to miss him
At the end of the session, several players stayed out to do extra work. Jaensch and Riley were practising handballing, and eight players (Knights, Tippett, Sellar, Edwards, Mackay, Craig, Walker and Luke Thompson) practiced goalkicking. At one stage Sellar was working with Hart, presumably to figure out how to beat a defender. For once in a way Armstrong didn't stay out late. He walked by me near the end of the session and a girl asked where he was going and he called back "I'm having an ice bath, want to join me?" I love Armstrong.
Hard for me to pick a trainer of the week today, since nobody really stood out. I'm going to have to go for a tie between Armstrong and Cook, both of who looked very classy.
First thing's first, Van Berlo was out and running
Gee, he looks like a unit too, his upper body is absolutely enormous, he's clearly been working himself hard in the gym while he hasn't been able to run. Today he was running (albeit in a straight line only) and looked relatively unhindered. He was doing a bit of work with Martin, and neither of them have any strapping which was nice to see.The main injured group was pretty small today - Donnelly (who seems to have some strapping over his left knee), Van Berlo, Symes and one other that slips my mind right now made up the core injured group. Bock was out doing running, along with Talia who already looks bigger than he did when he first came to the club a month ago and looks to be running brilliantly for a guy with supposed hamstring problems, and participated for part of the main training session but joined them later on, and (Scott) Thompson spent much of the session working individually with a trainer. He didn't seem to be hampered during the session but favoured his leg when he first came out so presumably he's a touch sore from a previous session or overstretched it or something. Luke Thompson also participated in much of the main session despite the shoulder strapping but occasionally joined the injured group.
I didn't see Porplyzia or Moran out there today - though I did see Moran in the cafe after the session, same as last time. He's obviously a fan
The session was broken into several game-day type events and specific drills, such as a drill where one side had to work the ball from one end of a marked area to another using only handball while another team tried to stop them. If the ball carrier had even a hand laid on him before he dished off the ball then they stopped the drill and restarted at the other end. The highlight for me was when Danger received the ball at one end from a trainer, put his head down, ran straight through two opponents, sprinted to the other end and handballed it to the other trainer, not even using a single one of his teammates
Speaking of Danger, I know I've said this before, but his teammates must hate him or something because they keep selling him into trouble
Three or four times a ball was passed to him that fell a metre or two short, and whereas most players would then simply not be able to recover the ball, he'd dive into it and end up gang-tackled as soon as he got it In the usual game-day drills it was clear that they were using three players, namely Cook, Sloane and Armstrong, as their go-to men when running out of defence. Usually one was off and the other two were on opposite teams so I guess the idea is they only have one of them playing the role. Armstrong in particular looked great, hitting the target all but one time, and Cook is a livewire, sidestepping and delivering. Sloane got involved in a lot of play and used his hands to good effect but his kicking let him down a touch.
Speaking of poor kicking, one of my favourite new players in James Craig let himself down a bit today with some poor kicking. It wasn't really Craig's day overall. At one point they had all the new guys (barring Talia, and of course Wright who is still overseas) running laps. Clearly in the lead right from the word go until they'd finished running several laps was Luke Thompson who looks fit as a fiddle. Gunston and Shaw came next, followed by Jaensch, then trailing a fair way behind was Riley, and then finally Craig
He didn't look exhausted, I'm just not sure it's that easy to move his frame as fast as the others. It was good to see some of the young guys getting involved with leadership too, with Talia calling out to the boys encouraging them to keep running, and Jaensch was later going at the same pace as Shaw and calling "come on Shawy, one, two, one, two". I guess he's done a couple of preseasons (albeit at SANFL level) before and that would be good for Shaw who has come straight out of the juniors. At one point Van Berlo was running with Craig to help set the pace too, great to see.Riley looks small out there
He's only young and has come from a nothing comp so he's a good couple of years away, and he's got something going for him, but he really looks like a boy among men even in our young squad (admittedly full of young kids who look like they've been raised on a diet of steroid and red meat). He looks to me to be the lightest player on our list.Towards the end of the session they were doing a drill where a player would kick out from the goal square to several players before rotating to receive the ball themselves. The receiver would then have to kick out to the wing to a player who would bring it back into the corridor where another player would then drive it forward to a contest between a key forward and key back. All the players would rotate throughout the positions and the key point of the drill was to use your voice, so you weren't allowed to dispose of the ball until you heard the voice. Sloane was good, encouraging everyone to "keep the voices up boys!", and it was a pretty positive drill overall. Young managed to pinpoint a few 50m kicks from the goalsquare which will make Drummond happy
I was trying to hear some of the nicknames but a lot of the new kids just seem to get called whatever goes through the mind of the receiver at the time. Riley was called Riley, Aiden, or something else I could never figure out throughout the session. Davis seems to have the nickname "Philthy". Rutten meanwhile has an awesome voice, it's this massive foghorning base voice that he booms out names with, hard to miss him At the end of the session, several players stayed out to do extra work. Jaensch and Riley were practising handballing, and eight players (Knights, Tippett, Sellar, Edwards, Mackay, Craig, Walker and Luke Thompson) practiced goalkicking. At one stage Sellar was working with Hart, presumably to figure out how to beat a defender. For once in a way Armstrong didn't stay out late. He walked by me near the end of the session and a girl asked where he was going and he called back "I'm having an ice bath, want to join me?"
I love Armstrong.Hard for me to pick a trainer of the week today, since nobody really stood out. I'm going to have to go for a tie between Armstrong and Cook, both of who looked very classy.
