On 20/10/2011 at 23:09, Crawf52 said:

I think this generally refers to maturing physically. Morton needs to mature mentally in order to do the basic stuff expected of anybody on the ground ; like getting one's head over the ball and taking one for the team occasionally.

Sorry, I can't let this one go through. Morton may make mistakes but I wouldn't say he shirks the issue. In fact, with a body like his I think what he does is more courageous than most on the ground.

Courage is not being brave when you are strong; courage is being brave when you are scared sh!tless.

  On 20/10/2011 at 23:35, dees189227 said:

It may be a shock to the players because this is a guy that has worked with a team that made 3 grand finals and has been involved in the finals campaign for number of years.

And was with the Swan's for their GF campaigns as well. Just finished reading Misson's book (The Bubble) on his time at St Kilda. Excellent read.

He is bringing a wealth of IP into our club, I hope the boys embrace and respond. Bring on the pre-season!

  On 20/10/2011 at 22:37, Lutz said:

Schwab actually said earlier this season that we have an issue with the majority of the group tending to OVERtrain.

Possibly spin, but young bodies do need time.

Maybe the previous fitness manager was too easy on them, held them back TOO much?

This is what happened to Essendon last pre-season. They were promised the 'hardest ever' pre-season, and by mid-season they were physically spent.

So it will be a tricky scenario for Misson to gradually improve all of our blokes to a level required without overcooking them. You dont want players going

down every second week in pre-season with hammies.

Lets hope we can get our best 22 out on the park as often as possible next year, thats the main aim..

Cale top 5 b& f 2012....................

I may be wrong but wasn't our conditioning staff ex Essendon?

The comments Mission may be making are the same comments Hird and Thompson said about Essendon last year.

Like someone posted you don't have to be sherlock holmes to realise we weren't fit enough to play the style of footy we wanted, we defend deep our forwards push to high and just couldn't work hard enough to get back forward and keep the ball in our forward line.

  On 20/10/2011 at 23:57, La Dee-vina Commedia said:

Sorry, I can't let this one go through. Morton may make mistakes but I wouldn't say he shirks the issue. In fact, with a body like his I think what he does is more courageous than most on the ground.

Courage is not being brave when you are strong; courage is being brave when you are scared sh!tless.

And that's the way he looks to me most of the time. Body language says a lot.

  On 20/10/2011 at 21:31, belzebub59 said:

Newman...... or Kramer ??

Definitely Newman; there's no love for BB on this Board.

  On 21/10/2011 at 04:52, Rogue said:

Definitely Newman; there's no love for BB on this Board.

its not easy being a BB...lol

  On 20/10/2011 at 10:18, RobbieF said:

Is there any thread on here where Cale Morton doesn't get canned? I certainly hope you lot that cry out for a fair go for Cook remember that Cale is only 21; so much for tall skinny players being given until 23 to mature. Only when it suits, hey?

Cale shies away from physical contact. Many of his efforts are quite lame. He deserves to cop a pasting from his team mates and probably here as well.

  On 20/10/2011 at 23:57, La Dee-vina Commedia said:

Sorry, I can't let this one go through. Morton may make mistakes but I wouldn't say he shirks the issue. In fact, with a body like his I think what he does is more courageous than most on the ground.

Courage is not being brave when you are strong; courage is being brave when you are scared sh!tless.

bingo!

Trenners and Tappy are already pretty well built out of our young brigade, but we need more mature bodies if we're going to be the "hardest team to play against". I look forward to McDonald eventually competing with Frawley, and Gysberts being that bit stronger.

Cale needs to be at least 90kg next year or something is seriously wrong with his eating/training habits. Maybe he needs to dump his girlfriend, then not only would putting on weight be beneficial to his career, but it'd get him the CHIIIIICKS too.

  On 20/10/2011 at 23:57, La Dee-vina Commedia said:

Sorry, I can't let this one go through. Morton may make mistakes but I wouldn't say he shirks the issue. In fact, with a body like his I think what he does is more courageous than most on the ground.

Courage is not being brave when you are strong; courage is being brave when you are scared sh!tless.

After watching the Darwin game this year I would have to disagree with you. He pulled out of multiple contests. 2 resulting in direct goals.

He looked very confused as to what his role actually was and was trying very hard to position himself in the right position but getting it completely wrong.

I pray that Neeld will let him play his more natural game because Bailey had lost him mentally.

  On 21/10/2011 at 01:00, DEELIGHTED said:

Cale top 5 b& f 2012....................

Lol, hold your horses there deelighted, or is it deelirious?

Lets see him go for at least one contested possession before we start contemplating top 5 finishes!

  On 21/10/2011 at 01:00, DEELIGHTED said:

Cale top 5 b& f 2012....................

Ha ha ha ha. Good one.

We don't want/need courageous players, we need hard players. Morton has had courageous moments, but he naturally lacks hardness. So when he shirks a contest, it looks really bad. Bennel is another.

Another way of saying it is that we need players who "enjoy the contest". Morton does not.

Ed: Morton was re-signed before Neeld was appointed. Wonder if he would have agreed with that.

  On 20/10/2011 at 09:34, why you little said:

It's almost time to watch "Full Metal Jacket" isn't it....might do it first day of Preseason.

3km time trials to the Mickey Mouse song. I'd like to see that.

  On 20/10/2011 at 11:41, Mono said:

Way too easy to walk in and say "you guys are crap....you need to be 50% fitter".

He will be judged in 12 months as to whether they are, and soft tissue injuries are low.

Remember, it was he who managed Ball for 3? years but couldn't manage his OP. The filth worked it out in 12 months.

Really, or was it mostly to do with the $$$ spent on the footy dept and the medical room, that allowed the ball transition???

Young players have to be very careful with their training loads. We may have been too conservative in our approach, but it's well known that young players don't have the same intensity in their preseasons as more seasoned bodies. Considering Melbourne have the second youngest list in the competition it's little wonder that there's a disparity with other clubs. It has nothing to do with laziness, or culture, but everything to do with list age.

Most of our quality young talent are entering their third/fourth seasons, so the collective group is ready for far more intensity.

  On 21/10/2011 at 04:56, belzebub59 said:

its not easy being a BB...lol

Haha, I wish I did that deliberately..!

With Misson's knowledge of fitness development and Craig's knowledge of Sports Science we should expect a top shelf program for each of our guys. It's a fine line with this sort of thing. How do you best manage the young ones? Less intense training? Less frequent training? A bit of both? Cross training? The hard part is that it is different for each individual too. Hopefully the younger ones will be utilising activities like swimming/cycling to help improve cardio fitness while not adding strain and too much fatigue to their bodies instead of having the odd day off to recover. Active recovery is always a bonus. Could be tough for Tappy though. He doesn't look like the kind of guy that would float at all.

  On 21/10/2011 at 20:39, mrtwister said:

With Misson's knowledge of fitness development and Craig's knowledge of Sports Science we should expect a top shelf program for each of our guys.

[MFCSS]Hopefully they're on the same page[/MFCSS]

  On 21/10/2011 at 01:00, DEELIGHTED said:

Cale top 5 b& f 2012....................

Davey to win the b&f next year.

Thought I'd give this thread a bump. And not just because I like reading the old threads but also because I wonder if the title of David Misson not impressed could change to David Misson, we aren't impressed.

What's everyones thought's on our fitness etc.

Personally the Geelong game highlighted a major weakness in the way we develop our players.

We seem to have too many who haven't put on enough size and more worrying lack the dynamic movement power required to play AFL. Grimes and Trengove are great examples of guys who can run all day but are way to rigid in the hips. They don't get up and down and move laterally etc.

The Darwin game also represents a unique opportunity to put our top in fitness base gains to test. And to me these so called gains are a joke. I can't believe the hardest thing we did up there was a walk FFS! Every other club is out there doing footy related training and we are going for a walk in Kakadu because it's hot. Spare me.

We also need to do much more of our preseason training in drills because as evidenced we need as much footy practice as possible.

The other concern in the injury list whilst not out of control is not looking great this year. Viney, Evans, Trengove and Jamar all with foot/toe over use injuries - I won't count Clark because the initial injury came from contact and the re-injury is more a responsibility of the surgeon/physios. Frawley, Dawes and Clisby all with hamstrings.

  On 15/07/2013 at 04:56, the master said:

Thought I'd give this thread a bump. And not just because I like reading the old threads but also because I wonder if the title of David Misson not impressed could change to David Misson, we aren't impressed.

What's everyones thought's on our fitness etc.

Personally the Geelong game highlighted a major weakness in the way we develop our players.

We seem to have too many who haven't put on enough size and more worrying lack the dynamic movement power required to play AFL. Grimes and Trengove are great examples of guys who can run all day but are way to rigid in the hips. They don't get up and down and move laterally etc.

The Darwin game also represents a unique opportunity to put our top in fitness base gains to test. And to me these so called gains are a joke. I can't believe the hardest thing we did up there was a walk FFS! Every other club is out there doing footy related training and we are going for a walk in Kakadu because it's hot. Spare me.

We also need to do much more of our preseason training in drills because as evidenced we need as much footy practice as possible.

The other concern in the injury list whilst not out of control is not looking great this year. Viney, Evans, Trengove and Jamar all with foot/toe over use injuries - I won't count Clark because the initial injury came from contact and the re-injury is more a responsibility of the surgeon/physios. Frawley, Dawes and Clisby all with hamstrings.

Don't disagree, but we need to give him a couple more years. He's a proven winner, and Rome wasn't built in a day.

Those Roos fans have really shut up about Steve Saunders since their collapses.

The Master, youve put into words some of my own misgivings. We thought we'd hit the jackpot snaring Misson but the results to date arent particularly earth shattering and like yourself will be interested to see how they fare in the NT

Despite all the prefacing of all statements ex MFC that we were starting form a long way back I sometimes wonder just how far back and if it wasnt sometimes just given up as the 'get out of all get outs"

But I suppose hes had just the two preseasons to work with. Maybe his instructions via the then coaching werent in the most effective direction. You would think that the health and fitness of the players had with it some automony so it ought to be his preserve alone.

Maybe hes not the sports medicine messiah he was cracked up to be. Very good , just not miraculous .

  On 15/07/2013 at 05:13, belzebub59 said:

The Master, youve put into words some of my own misgivings. We thought we'd hit the jackpot snaring Misson but the results to date arent particularly earth shattering and like yourself will be interested to see how they fare in the NT

Despite all the prefacing of all statements ex MFC that we were starting form a long way back I sometimes wonder just how far back and if it wasnt sometimes just given up as the 'get out of all get outs"

But I suppose hes had just the two preseasons to work with. Maybe his instructions via the then coaching werent in the most effective direction. You would think that the health and fitness of the players had with it some automony so it ought to be his preserve alone.

Maybe hes not the sports medicine messiah he was cracked up to be. Very good , just not miraculous .

I could live with the injuries if the guys were super fit or had big strong bodies like the swans players or Freo players.

Dan Nicholson is undoubtedly the fittest and one of the fastest on our list. It is also likely that he's one of the hardest workers so why hasn't he added some size to get some power into his game. He's not a young player anymore. Same for Watts - why is he still so easy to move around and at least 5kg off where he should be if he wants to be a serious AFL player. I could go on and on.

In terms of game day fitness/agility etc the players that stand out for mine come game day are N. Jones, Dawes, Frawley, Garland (despite a thinner build) and Byrnes. Why don't we have more players who look and play like professionals in terms of their physical capacity regardless of their talent.