Training - Wednesday 5th December, 2012 @ Gosch's Paddock (photos)

[Demonland 73,161]

Anyone get to training?

The official site has provided some photos:

http://www.melbournefc.com.au/tabid/7415/default.aspx?newsid=152082

[Vagg 2,439]

Andy, those photos are from Monday. (Says so under the misleading heading of Dec 5.)

"Check out some photos of our latest recruits at training on Monday."

[Matt Demon 1,482]

The photos are definitely from today.

[durango 2,023]

The people who went down to casy on monday would agree

[DeeVoted 583]

Those photos arent at Casey

[syl 40]

Yeah, the training and weather certainly looks like today.

Great to see Mitch getting more and more active.

[Cards13 9,117]

I'll have first crack.

It was cold, very bloody cold for a Nov session. Windy, was blowing a bit of a gale straight down the ground, it was on the ground Pies normally train on.

As you can see from pics the Pres was there, Schawbby, Viney, Mahon's and a few others from the 'office' dropped by at certain points.

Neeld loves to mess about with the coaches and players, in fact all the coaches do before sessions start. Seems like a great tight coaching group.

Tappy arrived late, right hammy strapped up (sad face). The light drills group was larger today than last time I was down, Tappy, Mitch C, Russian, Flash, Spencil, Toumpas, Mckenzie, J Mac and one other.

Hogs and Gawn did maybe 3 laps then headed across to oval set up with league goal posts with Tynan and Kent to work on agility and build load into the legs.

Dawes running laps on his own before doing some in close ball work with Russ and couple of others before heading in.

Col did all warm up but got to the end of the 2nd warm up drill and came off to get wrist, maybe thumb taped up. He went back out but headed off again at around half 10, didn't see him come back by the time I left at around 11.20.

After warm up they moved into 2 tackling based drills.

Far side was technique on backs then 'british bulldog' type exercise. As has been stated from previous sessions technique is go in low at the hips, head to the side grip and lift.

Near side were 3 players in green, 3 in blue keepings of type drill. Players from both groups started 5m apart and each group had to get around a set of cones before ball was put in play and feed directly to one of the 3 blue players. Blue players had to then break through the 3 green players and get to a cone another 5m away. Main focus seemed to be working in tight, positioning, trying to stand and dish of in tackles for blues while greens was the tackling technique from above, in low at hips... I thought Howe, Jones, Fitzy and Jetta were stand outs of this. Dom Barry was getting a fair bit of feedback form Greeve's, Dom is a stick at present and really needs to get the technique right. Interesting to see Greeve's and one other coach recording this drill on ipads for future review and also showing Barry replays of how he was going during the drill.

Next drill was 3 teams, green, white and blue. Set up so blue team had ball trying to keep it off green team. Blue had to get it to 8 (wild guess) consecutive handballs without a turnover, if achieved green team would sprint across to other wing where white team was waiting. Green would then try and strip off white team... then white team would sprint across to other wing and go against blue team... blue team would then come across to the other wing etc etc. I hope I was able to explain that one... Again another drill focussing on in close, contested work before being able to spread as hard as possible. I didn't really see any stand outs on this, maybe other did.

Barry left main group at about 10 past 11 to do some agility work with Tynan, Kent etc. Howe also left main group around here and headed inside.

Last drill I saw (too cold had to leave!!) was a full ground drill where blue team had to move the ball down the ground from defence. Little bit like circle work starting at full back but with a number of green 'defenders' trying to force a blue turn over.... they did this pretty easily. While it was windy indeed and it is early in preseason plenty of balls hit the ground or green team was able to intercept/tackle etc.

Overall from the time I was there it was a really solid standard session, everything timed to the second, every drill thought out and preplanned. Plenty of improvements, yet we still have a long way to go but each session is a step forward. I hope I can get down towards the end of preseason to a couple of sessions to compare against the last 2 sessions I have been too.

I don't envy the team going to Darwin to do the kind of sessions they do here in the heat and humidity, hope all goes well and they come back hungry to keep improving.

[La Dee-vina Comedia 16,909]

Thanks Cards13. (But you might want to change your footer).

[Vagg 2,439]

The photos are definitely from today.

Yep. They have now altered the wording on the website! It's today...

[Brayshaw Self 847]

Training started with some warm up laps whilst the coaches had a kick around. Leigh Brown literally hit the fence behind the goals from the halfway line after unleashing a monster torp. Max Gawn was the most vocal during warm up.

There were 3 groups of players at training:

- Main group

- One small group which included Clark, MacDonald, Pederson, Gillies and at times Dawes

- Small group withTynan, Kent, Evans and a couple I can't remember

The group with Tynan went to the other field for some speed and agility work for a while but were too far away to see anything too detailed apart from how short Kent was. When they finished, Evans came over to the main oval and did some repeat sprints around the boundary by himself. He looks at least 10kg heavier than he did on his debut and was working very hard during the running. Very impressive.

Clark's group did a few little handballing drills and a bit of mucking around in good spirits. Gillies looks very settled already and was teaching them some little handball games. Dawes was running times laps at a steady pace by himself before joining in this group after a while.

The main group did some full-ground circle work - leading, marking, handballing off to a running player who delivered to the next leading target and so on.

Hannath displayed good hands and mobility and Matt Jones had one stand-out run down a wing at full speed with a one-two handpass and a pinpoint kick to finish, which was super impressive. Nicholson's kicking was absolutely fantastic. Viney ran hard but missed a few targets. The players did this drill with real intensity and good skills in general. Dom Barry epitomises the description cat-like. He is a very smooth mover with nice skills but will need to seriously hit the gym. Rodan and Byrnes were extremely vocal in this drill and throughout the session.

The main group broke in to two groups and then in to 2 teams in each group. They did a few drills in a box about 20x20m. One drill was simply running from one side to the other while an opposition player tried to tackle you. People like Rodan and Jones were unstoppable, while Nev Jetta was a level above with his sideways movement and goose-steps fooling everybody. Watts had an extremely lack-lustre effort when he tried to pass Strauss with little to no effort and was stopped easily. They then had 3 on 3 trying to get a ball from one end to the other. Notable players were Jones, Jetta and Rodan once again while Howe and Viney were also good. Blease got smashed to the ground between Magner and Rodan after which Rodan picked him up and gave him words of encouragement.

After the skills training, the main group broke in to 2 groups for running. The first group consisted of McDonald, Nicholson, Magner, Bail, Jones, Watts and surprisingly Troy Davis. They ran as far as they could for 5 minutes, then 4,3,2,1, with small breaks in between. Nicholson and McDonald were neck and neck leading the main group the first few times, with Watts and Davis finishing at the back of their group, not too far behind. After each bout, Nicholson would cough and wheeze violently before yelling words of encouragement to every other player. Coaches were yelling to Blease and Watts to 'tack-on' to a player for each run and try to beat them. On the last run, Magner blitzed them and ended up 15m in front of Nicholson and was absolutely stuffed.

All in all, it was a very hard session and the standard was high. Standouts for me were Rodan, Magner, Jetta, Nicholson, McDonald.

[Tim 3,472]

Matt Jones had one stand-out run down a wing at full speed with a one-two handpass and a pinpoint kick to finish, which was super impressive.

Thanks for report, DG. I saw this bit in the short time I was there, and was also impressed.