Just a question mark at this stage.

The players are supposed to be back on Wednesday 4th January, 2012.

Depending on venue and time, I think I might be able to drag myself away from the cricket and the beach to "have a look around", as they say.

Anyone have an idea as to whether it's definitely on?

Just a question mark at this stage.

The players are supposed to be back on Wednesday 4th January, 2012.

Depending on venue and time, I think I might be able to drag myself away from the cricket and the beach to "have a look around", as they say.

Anyone have an idea as to whether it's definitely on?

According to the club website:

Training Times

The next open training session is:

Casey Fields - Wednesday 21st December - 9:45am

(160 Berwick - Cranbourne Road)

Just saw this on twitter from Sam Blease.

"Sam_Blease Sam Blease

Solid sesh with @jamesfrawley8 this morning, shattered to be leaving the grove today! Back into training tomorrow though cant wait!"

So it's definitely on, but no idea where, slowly piecing the puzzle together lol!

Melbourne Football Club Twitter

The @melbournefc players will be back out on the track training tomorrow morning from 9:45am at Gosch's Paddock - http://t.co/G6lAgzop

I'm based at Frankston ATM so I was hoping to dash cross country to Casey Fields but alas, not to be.

Perhaps, on Friday or next week

Still there should be a few at GP. Looking forward to the reports.

hoping to get down tomorrow before I return to perth, if I make it, I will report back...

do they still train in the wet these days? sounds ridiculous but i wouldnt mind having a look and i dont have to work if it keeps raining, i dont wanna go down to GP and find out there having a kick on a indoor basketball court somewhere!!

do they still train in the wet these days? sounds ridiculous but i wouldnt mind having a look and i dont have to work if it keeps raining, i dont wanna go down to GP and find out there having a kick on a indoor basketball court somewhere!!

Silly me and I thought it was a winter sport.

Silly me and I thought it was a winter sport.

do they not sometimes train indoors sometimes mate? and when i wrote that post i was getting thunder storms, was only asking so i dont waste my time driving there, thanks for ur input anyway mate good job

Was it Strauss that had that nasty leg break last year in the laste part of the season Anyway if it is how is he going and what stage is he up to in his rehab?

I popped down to training this morning to have a look. I arrived at about 10:30 am so I assume the boys had already been training for about 45 minutes. 

I've been living in Perth the last couple of years so I've rarely seen the players up close and I had trouble recognising quite a few faces, but I'll do my best. 

There seemed to be quite a few players missing, including a number of senior players, who I assume were given a little extra time off over Christmas so the numbers were down on what you'd normally expect.

 

When I arrived the main group were doing a half ground drill, which involved close to simulated match play. There would be a contested ball on the ground on the wing, usually just kicked along the ground by Brian Royal. The players would link up to clear the ball and kick to the leading forward, which pretty much every time was Mitch Clark. I only caught this drill for a couple of minutes before the players were called in by Jade Rawlings.

 

The group then split up with forwards, mids and backs.  I was quite surprised when the forward group were practicing something that you hear AFL players rarely practice, set shot goal kicking. The players were practicing from about 35m out or so on reasonable angles, I didn't notice too many missing. Watts and Howe were taking shots from the forward pocket.

 

The mids were doing a contested ball drill, winning the loose ball on the ground on a wing and then hitting a short target by foot.  While the backs were working on a kickout drill.  Jamie Bennell (whilst I  was watching this drill) would kick the ball out with other backman offering a target either short 20m out, or longer and wider on the half back flank, often with the receiver running with the flight of the ball.

 

Finally, the main group finished off with some fitness.  In 3 groups they would run a 3/4 lap, probably 300m, at good pace. Then have a walk recovery into the middle of the ground, before running some short sprint suicides over 20-30m, followed by a walk recovery back to where they started the lap. 

Sometimes these suicides would start with the players lying on the ground.  They completed this circuit 3 times.

 

In the first group we had the usual suspects, Trengove, Bail, Jones, T. McDonald, J. Macdonald. We also had Gysberts in this group, which was great to see given by all reports he was struggling at the start of pre-season.  Struggling to remember many of the others, Watts was in the second group, Mitch Clark and Blease were in the 3rd group, with a lot of our new recruits. Clark was leading this group quite easily, whilst Blease was straggling at the back still, but was putting the work in.

 

Players running laps included Spencer, Tapscott and Strauss.  Strauss was working very hard, always with an eye on his watch, pushing really hard.  As the pre-season update mentioned, he's put on plenty of bulk.  Was surprising to see him running so hard after his injury. Tapscott was keeping a good steady pace, whilst Spencer not as quick as the others, was keeping his pace consistent and was running for quite a while.

 

Lawrence and Cook were doing sprint work on their own under the eyes of the fitness staff, before doing some kick to kick amongst themselves later on. When the main group was doing the fitness at the end of the session, Bartram and Evans were just handballing to one another, however I think they may have done some of the other drills in the main group. Jurrah, equipped with cast was doing 100m sprints around the boundary line under the supervision of the fitness staff.

 

As I said at the beginning, there were a number of senior players missing, who I assume were given a long break. From what I saw this group included ( I could've just missed some of these players) , Bate, Davey, Dunn, Frawley, Garland (thought I saw him around, but not sure), Green (thought I saw him, but not certain), Jamar (saw him on the sidelines in his gear, but not participating in training), Moloney, Morton, McKenzie, Petterd, Rivers, Sylvia.

 

One thing that both I and my girlfriend noticed was that the Bull has one impressive rig on him ...

I went down for about 25 minutes or so then got the call to go back to work.

I too had a bit of trouble recognizing a few faces but as vanlo said there were a lot of the regulars missing today.

I didn't see Frawley, Garland, Moloney, Petterd Rivers, Davey and Sylvia.

Jamar ran laps at the start. He took off while bull and kept going at a good pace the whole time while Jurrah, Spencer and Strauss seemed to jog along at a slower pace.

The only main drill I saw all of was the same drill that vanlo saw with the mids doing the contested work then when they won the ball out they'd pick the best forward option coming forward which more times than not it was either in Killa Watts' or Mitchy Clark's hands both looked good, Watts absolutely pantsed Sellar, made him look silly. I'm not sold on Sellar to be honest but we'll see. Clark, Watts and Howey stood out the most with the set shots. I can't remember them missing one.

The thing I found interesting was Sammy Blease training with the forwards always around the feet of Clarky. He looked good when they were doing snap shots for goal on either foot. His set shot wasn't as great with one almost rolling along the ground from about 30 out directly in front!

Can't really give to much more as the boss wasn't rapt when he heard I was at Melbourne training! Ha ha.

Cheers Vanlo :-)

... and Ding. Haha

Thanks guys. Brilliant.

You don't know where training is on Friday by any chance?

Thanks guys

Yeah - thank you gentlemen for your views.

Thanks guys. Brilliant.

You don't know where training is on Friday by any chance?

can't help you on that one sorry. One thing I should've mentioned in my report was that after reading all the reports of the pre-season thus far, I was a little surprised they weren't pushed harder on the fitness. Having said that I missed the first 45 mins, and given there were plenty of players still off on their break, perhaps this was a warm up for the next session where they'll be really pushed. But I saw on the news tonight at North Melbourne had a 2km time trial today to see how everyone returned from pre-season, perhaps something similar will take place on Friday, even perhaps a return to Princes Park...

Based on past sessions, they usually do most of their heavy fitness work at the very start of the training sessions, so you may well have missed a fair bit of that stuff.

Great report too.

Missed the first 10 minutes, saw the rest of training. 

Agree with everything said above. Some extra points. 

LJ was running a lot of laps at a probably a quick 800 to I500 metre pace, looking very good, and very focussed. He's bulking up a bit too. 

No concerns with Sam Blease ... he struggles with the hard repeat 400's, but struggle is a relative term and he's trying his guts out it seems. He is like a rapier when it comes to the 60m sprint collect and deliver drills. Is also looking bigger. 

Jeremy Howe is a bit of a freaky athlete, in the Jones group for the 400's, very fast on the quick stuff, football smarts and very very sticky hands. If he has an injury free season, it will be breakout. 

Both Taggert and Tynan look very very willing, not out of place at all, and Tynan has some size. 

Saw Michael Evans doing slow laps. The suicide sprints from a lying down start were very interesting. 

Jack Watts, who fights to hang on the back of his 400m group, has a real battle with Neville Jetta for the honours in these sprints. Both of them are looking excellent. 

Mitch Clark looking very good, and clearly back into full training. 

Saw the midfield group do a one on one contesting drill from the ruck tap ... ALL looked good, (including Couch and Tynan) particularly Jonesy, who is a training maniac, and clearly indestructable, Trengove, who also just seems to love training, and Gysberts, who just seems incredibly smart and elite with his decision making, like JT. I have no doubt he will be a gun, just a natural and with guts. 

Both Joel Mac and Tommy Mc also excel in training. 

James Sellar is clearly being groomed for key backline. As everybody was finishing, he had Jade Rawlings kicking to him, whereupon he would sprint back from the mark, turn and hit Rawlings back on the lead.

 

All in all, the guys look good, and enthused. Jack Watts does a lot of encouragement talk out there, as does Jonesy.

I saw most of training as well - a bit late. The guys above summed it up pretty well.

 

Perhaps lighter on the running side than previous training (from reports I have seen anyway).

 

I was really impressed with both Bennell and Howe in the skills drills - watch for JB to make big strides this year.

 

I had previously heard knocks on Jurrah's work rate and running. Well I thought he was really committed and was working at a good pace the whole session while most others were working on their skills. Perhaps he is now finally developing the fitness base and it has been a gradual build up from the fitness staff and maybe we should trust them a bit more that they actually know what they are doing?

 

I was watching the mid drills closely when they split into groups. Geesh we look small when Moloney, Bate + Sylvia are not there in those exercises.

 

When the groups worked together, I was actually quite pleased with our skill level. I watched a session at the same time last year and thought we were a long way off the pace then. The guys who missed targets more than once were probably more from the first year  players which I would expect.

 

Watts' skills are sublime. Others to catch my eye were Howe, Bennell and Trengove.  Jonesy (while missing one kick that I can see) is a consumate professional, always encouraging and advising the others. He is really leading the way with the midfielders - good to see.

 

New guys hard for me to work out. Saw Couch with midfielders and he really can work a clearance (although he has a really weird running style!). Sellar looked confused at times as to where to run as a backman with one of the drills but i thought his skills were servicable for a big guy overall. I also thought Fitzy has improved a long way from his kicking skills (although he still looks slightly ungainly).

 

I liked the drills, short, sharp lots of coaching involvement. saw Wattsy having an in depth chat with Neil Craig post training. Hopefully, the old guru can provide his wisdom!

Sounds great, thanks guys.

No mention of grimes?

(the forgotten man?)

My favourite for the next captain.

Also, good to hear about Strauss.

He's growing into a mini-Frawley.

Sounds great, thanks guys.

No mention of grimes?

(the forgotten man?)

My favourite for the next captain.

Also, good to hear about Strauss.

He's growing into a mini-Frawley.

Can't captain from the medical room. Has missed two thirds of games so far in four years, no chance at this stage.

Just went past gp on the train and saw about 15 players out on the park.

Putting it out there just in case anyone is in the area and wants to take a look.

Thank you ppl's, a great read (as usual), i always look forward to these reports

Really enjoyed the reports ppls.Thanks