It would be good to find out if he has a fitness or injury issue that is holding him back. He had that op post season so might be under instructions. People are very quick to judge when few of us have any idea what is really going on with individual players injury management. I'm trying to be optimistic here. I would love to see him become a weapon rather than another bust.

I don't think anyone is righting him off. otherwise we would be just calling for his delisting.

he has talent, but needs somehow to learn how to use that talent in todays congested footy. so he can then progress mentally with his footy.

it'll be interesting to watch him this year to see how he's going.

Tweet from Jon Pierik of the Age

Sounds like there could be a report coming up in his newspaper on the two training sessions and a sign that football's getting closer.

Thanks to those who logged in their reports today. Interesting and yet disappointing to read those views on Sam Blease who seems to constantly struggle through pre seasons.

Perhaps his muscle fibres are so predominantly "fast twitch" that he finds it really difficult to adapt to the sort of training indicated for AFL footballers these days -

Fast and slow twitch muscle fibers.

If there is anyone out there with knowledge in this area, I'd like to hear their views.

I think you have a point WJ and would like to add 2c to your Blease/muscle type question please.

I'm not the most trained expert, but decades ago graduated 5 years full time study including anatomy, physiology, neurology etc to become a fully qualified chiropractor (they vary) ... then remained a pro guitarist. My brother's a doctor and a friend of some AFL doctors. We're interested.

Simply put it's still: animals' slowest most powerful muscles make the reddest meat, the fastest muscles make the whitest meat, eg. birds wing & breast muscles for flight.

Humans are basically red muscle except hands which depend on the individuals activities. A bricklayers hands are red muscle, a lead guitarist or violinist has white for speed & finesse.

If the guitarist lays bricks or spends hours daily deeply massaging his girlfriend for weeks, his fingers become stronger for slow movements, but guitar speed is greatly reduced. I've tested this.

All you need know is that the body has amazing ability to rebuild itself (it's always rebuilding, replacing cells) and does so to help you best accomplish the tasks you most frequently perform.

Hopefully you see the analogies. By far, the most efficient best footy training is to duplicate what has to be done in performance (which isn't laps).

Near the end of my footy I'd go alone to an empty oval and, to the uninitiated would embarrassingly appear to be going nuts running around going through every movement just as if playing a game! Run a few paces, change direction, sell some candy, jump for an imaginary mark, sprint 40m, bend to pick up the ball, bump an imaginary player, dive for a mark, running all the time; take a few seconds break & it all starts again. I think this is the most efficient training for any player. My game fitness improved out of sight very quickly, less due to the color of muscle being encouraged, but more because there are zillions of muscles in the body, many of which don't get much from "running the tan" or whatever. That's my second training point; the appropriate muscles themselves must be developed in the right way for the tasks required and again that's best accomplished by repeating those tasks at pace, over and over.

So I don't care how well Blease (or any player) sprints 300m as long as they're great at 100m, 50m, 20m multiple repeat sprints containing dodging, weaving, bending over, jumping up, kicking, in fact going through all the motions you would during games ... and if Blease can repeat it far more often than in past years, I hope he'd have a chance:- )

I got down there at 9.20 and players already out for warm ups. Trained for about 90 minutes with the first 60 minutes being ball work at medium intensity and the last 30 minutes being timed 4 reps of 300s with short straight line burst running in between each one. Without checking appears all in attendance.

Hogan did not train but was there early then disappeared.

Rehab group was Fitz, Clark, Dawes, Kent, Reilly, Jamar, Clisby and Gawn. Dawes and Kent looked most advanced but all were doing running with limited concern.

Salem, Viney and Byrnes did skill session but not 300s.

I thought the handball drills were very clean but the kicking a bit askew partly due to the swirly wind and partly due to the usual culprits.

None of the draftees look even close to ready although was impressed with how hard JKH pushed himself in the 300s.

The four players that stood out in the positive were Toumpas (best gut running all session), Evans (had put on good size and moved well all session), Howe (most polished all session) and Barry (stood out with his speed and silk).

The boys we traded for all have good body size and just go about their business as professionally as you would expect.

The most disappointing by far was Blease. How a player who has been in the system as long as him even with his layoff be at the tail end of the C grade group for running is beyond me. Even then he only appeared to coast whilst others busted a serious gut.

Excuse spelling mistakes as doing this off iPad on a tram on way home. Will edit up and add more later. Also happy to answer questions where possible.

Any news/sign of Ro Bail please, BRFE?

Looks like Ten News has a story on training starting back up today for the Dees (and other filthy clubs we won't utter), probably around 5:40pm.

Not worried, most are over 18 and should be motivated enough, support staff mostly selected by Paul Roos will carry out what is required and would be under direction, we also have a month before Nab cup games...a break is good..

Any news/sign of Ro Bail please, BRFE?

Trained in the main group and did all running at the end of the session.

I think you have a point WJ and would like to add 2c to your Blease/muscle type question please.

Thanks Rob and 2c well spent. That view fits in with my experience of involvement with athletics. In general, on those occasions when we used to go for long training runs, the sprinters suddenly became scarce. There were a few exceptions and not surprisingly, those who also had speed and endurance, were the best all round athletes and excelled at other sports e.g. footy, soccer and hockey.

The are a few examples in AFL, the most notable being Chris Judd who, when at his peak had that rare combination of speed and of endurance. Let's hope that Sam is able to improve his endurance so that he can step up in the game because he has the potential to be a dangerous player either around goals or coming out of defence.

The are a few examples in AFL, the most notable being Chris Judd who, when at his peak had that rare combination of speed and of endurance.

At MFC we have Barry and Bail to name two (but Bail falls down on the footy side of the equation)

And once again Tasmanlvr has come through with the goods from Bigfooty:

Training Update:

Welcome back to Melbourne training in 2014! It's great to be back. We may have lost 20 games last season but that doesn't stop me from having the excitement level of a pre-pubescent One Direction fan at their concerts.
So I get there and there's some stretching going on. Good to see pretty much the whole group out here.
Kent, Clisby, Riley, Jamar, Clark, Dawes, Fitzy and Gawn make up 2014's first rehab group. Great to see Dawesy running.
Simple lap to start off for the main group. Does it surprise me that Nicho is up the front? No it doesn't.
Looking for tennis players but I don't see any. They're mostly in Brisbane/Sydney. Do know Novak is around in Melbourne. NOVAK!!! NOVAK!!! WHERE ART THOU??? Come do an impression of Mark Neeld... or something... and give us a ping for publicity...
Meantime at training, some runthroughs were followed by short kicking.
Handball drills follow. Runthroughs going on at rehab. Dawesy running through too.
Solid crowd building up.
Ground drills, pick ball up, ride a bump, hands off. Ground skills have picked up straight off the bat and they're looking really solid at the moment.
Tackling drill. YES. It's similar to the last drill but it's pick the ball up then brace for a tackle. Only brief but the boys are hitting hard. Noice.
NEW DRILL, but it's similar to one I went through at Mernda (my local footy club). It's a kick around the centre square, with one group marking at each point followed by a hands off to a teammate nearby followed by a short kick. Trenners looks good. Jack Viney wearing boots CLEARLY inspired by Victoria Azarenka's wheels at Brisbane. COME ONNNNNNNNN JACK. SRSLY.
Swapped direction afterwards. Salem oozes class.
It's a tad cold...
The Toump wearing new wheels too. Fluoro orange + what appears to be matte black. What's getting into these young blokes?
They've now split. One group has Daniel McPherson watching over and has JKH, Howe, Spencer, Dunn, Terlich, Bail and Westrupp (that's in front of us). On the other side it looks like Roos and Stone working together. Miller working in nearby 50 on other side. Looks like they are working on delivery... I think.
Ed Lower at the rugby part at Gosch's? WTF? An AFL comeback? Wut.
Boys have gone off for a moment. Running drills?
Again more ridiculous choices of wheels. Cross has fluoro pink laces. Vince with fluoro orange wheels.
To be fair I bought a new pair of black shoes yesterday lel. Many criticise.
Boys are running 300s by the sounds of it. Davey Misson imploring a 'hard effort' straight back from pre season.
More runthroughs. First year players + few others on the sidelines. Viney + Byrnes jogging laps.
Midfield group comes in + a few ringins who'd play in the midfield from time to time. Dave Misson urging the boys to keep going hard, with no drop in performance.
Tom McDonald schooling everyone again. Even Jonesy. Toumpas (with McDonald and Jones) showing a bit of fatigue compared to these two which is kinda expected.
Garland gapping Blease big time! Blease is still recovering a tad. Shows the difference between full training and not training.
Taking an understanding that Nicho was throwing up a fair bit too.
Boys look finished now.

Trained in the main group and did all running at the end of the session.

Thank you.

Could just be blind ambition though. There are definitely players who will improve on our list under Roos, but if Blease is struggling to keep up with the laggers on our list, Jesus himself wouldn't get much more out of him.

In fairness, I don't recall that JC ever coached a Premiership side: Roos has.

Still, I do share your scepticism regarding Blease's fitness and intensity issues.

Nice report from Roger's correspondent but if he saw Paul Roos at training then he should check his eyesight because I thought he was in Africa or somewhere.

Channel 9 report in 20 seconds....

'Lean Demons......'

I reckon he's been unofficially working for us since about April.

Roos is paid for his expertize, not overtime.

To add some more -

Roos is being paid for his reputation, to boost ours.

Roos is being paid to identify and develop our next long term senior coach.

Roos is being paid to get a coherent and effective coaching group in place now.

Fox Sports News had a brief piece about our key forwards (Chris Dawes, Jesse Hogan and Mitch Clark) being involved in a "race against time" to be fit for the start of the season.

Newsreader: Dawes won't begin full training until the end of the month following knee surgery, Hogan is also recovering from a knee problem while Clark is on the mend following a serious foot injury.

That was followed by this grab from Josh Mahoney:

"They're all on individual programmes and they're all targeted to be ready for the start of the season. Mitch has recovered (from his foot) really well and Jesse's been on a modified programme but the plan is to have them all up and going and as I said with Chris, if they're not ready and all three of them aren't out there in round 1, well it's not a big worry for us."

There was also what seemed to be a much briefer item on Collingwood's training so I would imagine the producer will receive an irate phone call from a Mr. McGuire at some stage during the evening.

if they're not ready and all three of them aren't out there in round 1, well it's not a big worry for us."

speak for yourself Josh!

speak for yourself Josh!

You'd think we'll cope if only two of them are there. Especially if one of the two is Clark.

The bigger question is whether the lads in the middle will make a better fist of getting it down there anyway.

Saw the news tonight and they showed training. 2 things which is all they said. Jack Watts looks trim and Chris Dawes hopes to be fit for r1.

On a side note it was good to see Dean Bailey rock up to adelaide training in the middle of his treatment.

Saw the news tonight and they showed training. 2 things which is all they said. Jack Watts looks trim and Chris Dawes hopes to be fit for r1.

On a side note it was good to see Dean Bailey rock up to adelaide training in the middle of his treatment.

Like.

Hmm I thought I read somewhere last year that Dawes would be back in full training straight after the new year. I must say I am a bit disappointed that's now extended till the end of this month..

I'd rather a properly rested Dawes easing into the season mid-year, than a rushed Dawes getting injured round 1 and sitting out the rest of the season.

I'd rather a properly rested Dawes easing into the season mid-year, than a rushed Dawes getting injured round 1 and sitting out the rest of the season.

Yup.

No rush for round 1. Just get him 100% right and get him back when ready.

speak for yourself Josh!

I reckon Josh is being on the conservative side which is the tendency of most club medicos as well as club spokespeople.

IMO all three will be ready in 4 to 6 weeks but I'm not saying from when.

A lot of players at a range of clubs are where Dawes is at. Especially the teams who have gone deep in September are likely to have guys coming back late. We just aren't used to it happening successfully of late and Dawes is a big name so there's interest.

Dawes was doing minimal out door running before Xmas. It's logical that he now does a couple of weeks of long steady running that seems to be Misson's post injury standard. Then another couple of weeks probably in some drills then in to separate running. A couple of months at least until any real games so I'm not concerned.

By the way no tennis players but I did a lap of the tan after the session and I saw Luke Wright from the Melbourne stars out for a walk in the park with a baby in a pram and (what I presume) is his wife/partner. She was a fair sort. And I knew it was him because he went and got in a Melbourne Stars SUV which they've obviously given him to drive around whilst he's here. The poms obviously struggle in the Test cricket but it seems almost one in every team in the big bash. Wright, Butler, Morgan, Lumb, Shah, Bopara, Kieswetter and Hales, not a bad T20 line up batting wise.

So I don't care how well Blease (or any player) sprints 300m as long as they're great at 100m, 50m, 20m multiple repeat sprints containing dodging, weaving, bending over, jumping up, kicking, in fact going through all the motions you would during games ... and if Blease can repeat it far more often than in past years, I hope he'd have a chance:- )

I'd rather be just practises getting the ball over and over to be honest!