Melbourne's Athletic Development Coach Bohdan Babijczuk is being interviewed on SEN today. The first half of the interview was about the changes at Melbourne and how these are impacting on its pre season. He spoke of his role and that of Chris Connolly, the assistant coaches, the fitness manager Joel Hocking, the strength and conditioning coach Valeri Stoimenov and the club's IT people and even the recruiting people who are working in a co-ordinated programme. Stoimenov, from Bulgaria, is a world class weights coach who has coached four world record holders and also knows about team sports because he was also involved with their Olympic handball team.

Mentioned when the club did a tough run for the first time at Churchill Park, only nine players could get through the hard session. Also the club has had a lot of players in rehab over the past two years whereas this year there are far less in rehab. For e.g. Matty Whelan has missed the last couple of pre seasons but is doing well along with a lot of the younger players.

Now talking a bit about the times when he was with Hawthorn and entered a team in the athletics at the Glenhuntly track.

Answering questions now on the club. First question on Jack Watts ... I'm recording (for home use only) and will report in detail on the questions to follow later this evening or early tomorrow as I'm going out for dinner with the cheese.

he also said brad green did 20m sprint in 2.9 seconds wich is quit fast.

Thanks guys

much appreciated

cheers alpha and others

Spoke well... VERY detailed and interesting, gave great examples of anecdotes and stuff.

Though interestingly, he was most glowing about Hawks players and Nathan Carroll...

When asked about Jack he said he's only done skills drills so far, and that they have to watch his bulking up because he's so skinny and it might add pressure to weak areas... he said in passing "skinny knees" or something like that which made my ears [censored] up.

BB spoke about how at Hawthorn he organised for an athletics team to be entered in summer competition and was asked why he hasn’t done the same thing at Melbourne. He explained that when he came to the Demons two years ago the list was quite brittle and it was too early for that. You need time to get a lot of the players together and to develop team spirit in an athletics team.

With Jack Watts, he’s an exceptional, well-spoken young man, very impressive and what struck BB was that he was happy to be at the club. He came over and said “hello”, introduced himself and his mates and the joy of him playing and the love of the game really stood out. If he plays like that Melbourne is onto a winner.

In his first week at the club he hasn’t really done a lot having come in from out of the normal training schedule. He’s done a few football training sessions - mainly just an introduction to the weights. BB cast his eyes around him and said he’s a skinny kid, skinny around the knees. It’s just going to take a little time to prepare him for AFL because being a key position player he’s going to have to play a major role in the future and the club has to be careful with him. The other thing is his body’s still lean. He’s not carrying the extra kilograms so he has to be developed in the right way because if we put weight on there’ll be stresses on his body and the power to weight ratio is changed. You need to take care in those situations.

How does Dean Bailey train the players and what is he like as a coach?

Bailey’s an excellent teacher so he knows how to get the message across. He’s not an old fashioned type who growls at guys, he explains what he needs done. Players have different strengths and weaknesses and cope differently with situations. He’s coped well in a difficult year and the only time he saw Dean down was in the last couple of games of the season when “we as a team let him down.”

This year the club’s started pre season earlier and things are looking so much better. The commitment is good, the players signed off on it and the AFL gave its approval. It will pay off as the pre season goes on and the players are developing well.

BB was asked who his pet project at Melbourne – Nathan Jones and Brad Miller have asked for extra development as has Brad Green who has come on in his long term development and recently ran 2.9 secs over 20 metres. His favourite Melbourne player for the Brownlow? Brock McLean (who he also tipped last year before he got injured).

On the new set up at Casey Fields. We were like the Leyland Brothers going to a number of different venues and players were complaining the constant changes and how it was bad for the body to have so many different routines. With the move, the players are all happy at Cranbourne.

Many thanks Alpha for your excelent work on Demonland and the effort you put into your reports. They are very much appreciated.

Thanks Alpha! im in the U.K at the moment and have pretty much no chance of finding out about this stuff. Without people like you it would be a very boring off-season for myself! cheers.

Most insightful report in a long time. Thanks Alpha.

Appreciate the efforts on this report and the past documentation of other interviews. A value service Alpha.

he also said brad green did 20m sprint in 2.9 seconds wich is quit fast.

I think that you will find that he was talking about Brad Miller doing 2.9 20m.

On the new set up at Casey Fields. We were like the Leyland Brothers going to a number of different venues and players were complaining the constant changes and how it was bad for the body to have so many different routines. With the move, the players are all happy at Cranbourne.

I think that this was the most telling part of the interview; he mentioned that when training at Trinity the players had to get back in their cars and drive back to Junction Oval for weight sessions. This meant a large part of their rehab was spent behind the wheel of a car, not ideal. He reported that Nathan Jones had taken 100 minutes for one journey.

I presume that this is why training at Casey is three days a week with the other two being at the Junction. The sooner we finalise things with Casey and get the weights room built at Casey the better,

This was excellent! I only wish i'd heard the interview too!

What was Watt's 20m Sprint at the camp? It was around that right? If we can get Miller up to that speed we're going to have some pretty mobile forward!

This was excellent! I only wish i'd heard the interview too!

What was Watt's 20m Sprint at the camp? It was around that right? If we can get Miller up to that speed we're going to have some pretty mobile forward!

Watts did 2.82, elite time at 196cm!

I'm sure watts will line up for a few games next year either because he is a gun and they can't keep him out of the side or because they want to give him a taste.... Going my the size of him I would be surprised if he plays of the wing, rovering HHF for the few games rather than at FF

Nice report Alpha, thanks for recording it.