I have always thought Nibbler is good at making goals out of slim chances but still missing set shots.

33 minutes ago, Satyriconhome said:

Gus wears his because his Mum wants him to, but doesn't at training

Presumably because his Mum doesn't go to training, so may not be aware of what his naughty son is doing while away from her killer gaze!  (Sure hope she's not reading this.  If she is, young Gus might be in a world of pain once his Mum gets hold of him!  LOL)

22 minutes ago, Demonland said:

 Apologises for the veil of negativity in this post.

Not good enough, Andy!  Lift your game!!

28 minutes ago, Demonland said:

This is a real worry. ANB really disappointed me with his conversion last year (7 goals 9 points). Winning time trials means naught if you can't get the ball and then butcher it when you do. Apologises for the veil of negativity in this post.

i think ANBs biggest issue is he doesn't commit to running to the goal line with every possession to ensure he kicks from the goal line

I feel he would improve his conversion rate to 100%

Of course he is going to need to be Barry Neale-AllenBullen in a Flash suit to pull it off

Thanks for the reports. Appreciate the info from all of you. Different opinions gives us a better view of it all.

How is Melksham looking? I see him as a recruit this season, and our number 1 fwd. Crucial to us turning it around 

It is the 9 to 12 schedule. A beautiful morning to train in.

Marty, one of the support staff says they are different team this season. I agree with him, seems a change in the vibe out there. Hoping it can translate out on the field when it counts.

In rehab was Aaron VandenBerg, Austin Bradtke and Harrison Petty. Their work load seems to have increased, harder running and ball work.

Walking laps was Oskar Baker, Adam Tomlinson and Mitch Hannan.

The main group had about 33 (?) players in it.

Warm-ups were again inventive and different from the previous morning.

They split into two groups and there were two stations. One being a congested game with no contact and fast ball movement. The other was using just over half the field with minimal pressure from four coaches and the players creating switches and corridors to move the ball into the forwards who would finish with set shots. They swapped stations.

The players on light duties went over to the rehab area to finish off while the others competed in simulations.

Light duties included Neville Jetta, Jake Lever, Kade Chandler, Sam Weideman and Joel Smith (seems to be on his own program).

Bayley Fritsch, Tom McDonald, Ed Langdon, Steven May, Christian Salem, Corey Wagner, and Christian Petracca were the ones who stood out to me in simulations.

Marty Hore and Kade Kolodjashnij had a collision when both defending a high ball. Looked more like both being winded, Kade left training. I hope as a precaution, he was wearing the 'red cap'.

Charlie Spargo was the only one missing today.

Steven May and Clayton Oliver trained well. Clayton with a bit of strapping on his left shoulder and at one time had the 'red cap' on.

 The training kind of petered out after they had a good chat in the middle.

A group doing tackling, one on one, or two contests and a kind of leap frog activity.

A group having their set shots at goal filmed in preparation for analysis. Some doing 150-meter sprints.

A good first week.

Jake Melksham is doing fine. Looks like hs is working a lot with Tom Mcdonald. They are often blocking and helping each other create separation and overlaps. In simulations they were often getting repeat entries, so they were kept busy. 

3 hours ago, Scoop Junior said:

Oliver and May both training and both appear to be fine. Oliver has his left shoulder strapped. 

What a Scoop!

thanks for the happy news

5 hours ago, kev martin said:

It is the 9 to 12 schedule. A beautiful morning to train in.

Love it Kev.

The training variation is a great idea. Anything can be thrown at you on gameday, so why train as a set routine. Mix it up, test the mind and prepare for the unexpected. Really like this.

Sounds like poor awareness from Hore to get anywhere near KK, disappointing.

Why you’d have Oliver back in any kind of contact before he’s 100% again is beyond me.

Stop doing contact drills in November. Just isn’t worth it. 

This team needs so much skill and decision making work it’s beyond me why you’d do anything with risky contact. 

2 hours ago, kev martin said:

A group having their set shots at goal filmed in preparation for analysis. 

That's a relief! 

12 minutes ago, DeeSpencer said:

Sounds like poor awareness from Hore to get anywhere near KK, disappointing.

Why you’d have Oliver back in any kind of contact before he’s 100% again is beyond me.

Stop doing contact drills in November. Just isn’t worth it. 

This team needs so much skill and decision making work it’s beyond me why you’d do anything with risky contact. 

Out of curiousty - Were you at the sesh @DeeSpencer??

4 minutes ago, Engorged Onion said:

Out of curiousty - Were you at the sesh @DeeSpencer??

Nope. Hoping to get to a full session next week. At 9 or 10:30 or whenever 

4 minutes ago, DeeSpencer said:

Nope. Hoping to get to a full session next week. At 9 or 10:30 or whenever 

Cool. I look forward to your report and subsequent criticisms of the live action

 

Another note to add: Was chatting to someone today that sees Joel Smith on a regular basis and in fact he saw him this morning. 

Direct quote: "He's absolutely flying, he's in great nick – completely 100%".

Based on that we have to assume they're just loading him up really slowly hence why he's in rehab.

Can already see Marty Hore's plan to get a regular game, he was responsible for taking Spargo out as well

5 minutes ago, DemonWheels said:

Another note to add: Was chatting to someone today that sees Joel Smith on a regular basis and in fact he saw him this morning. 

Direct quote: "He's absolutely flying, he's in great nick – completely 100%".

Based on that we have to assume they're just loading him up really slowly hence why he's in rehab.

They are being ultra cautious given his injury history

You will find him in and out of the main group over next few weeks, just has to stay away from Marty Hore

5 hours ago, kev martin said:

It is the 9 to 12 schedule. A beautiful morning to train in.Marty, cap' on.

Bloody good work Kev and greatly appreciated. 

1 hour ago, DeeSpencer said:

Sounds like poor awareness from Hore to get anywhere near KK, disappointing.

Why you’d have Oliver back in any kind of contact before he’s 100% again is beyond me.

Stop doing contact drills in November. Just isn’t worth it. 

This team needs so much skill and decision making work it’s beyond me why you’d do anything with risky contact. 

I don't really see how you are practising this properly without having contact, sure your kick or handball might make the target in training with token pressure but it's probably going to be shut down in a game.

1 hour ago, DeeSpencer said:

Stop doing contact drills in November. Just isn’t worth it. 

This team needs so much skill and decision making work it’s beyond me why you’d do anything with risky contact. 

I was talking to Brian an old footy type support staffer for MFC.

He reckons they don't go hard enough at training. A real old schooler. 

I interpreted this to mean, without the high pressure that is reserved for games then how do you know how you will handle it. Those who perform under pressure are the gems.

He also said that they don't play with enough instincts and instincts come from pressure situations. 

Can see both points of view, Brian's and DeeSpencer's (wrapping in cotton wool in early preseason).

Last year we did a lot of turnovers when the pressure was on us. Plus we had lots of injuries. 

I think I am more old school. Let them go at it. Harden them up. From my experience injuries come from unexpected or unseen hits. If they expect the hits they will see them coming and protect themselves accordingly.

High pressure training can only be a benefit for the real game.

Like one drill today, without any pressure. It looked amazing, very clean ball movement and exact working to structure. Come the pressure and that completely changes.

Running injuries, hammy's, calf, foot stuff is not usually from impacts but poor preparation.

Concussion on the other hand? A big question mark in our game.

Edited November 22, 20195 yr by kev martin

1 hour ago, DeeSpencer said:

Sounds like poor awareness from Hore to get anywhere near KK, disappointing.

Why you’d have Oliver back in any kind of contact before he’s 100% again is beyond me.

Stop doing contact drills in November. Just isn’t worth it. 

This team needs so much skill and decision making work it’s beyond me why you’d do anything with risky contact. 

Train soft play soft, that just isn't worth it.

9 minutes ago, kev martin said:

I was talking to Brian an old footy type support staffer for MFC.

He reckons they don't go hard enough at training. A real old schooler. 

I interpreted this to mean, without the high pressure that is reserved for games then how do you know how you will handle it. Those who perform under pressure are the gems.

He also said that they don't play with enough instincts and instincts come from pressure situations. 

Can see both points of view, Brian's and DeeSpencer's (wrapping in cotton wool in early preseason).

Last year we did a lot of turnovers when the pressure was on us. Plus we had lots of injuries. 

I think I am more old school. Let them go at it. Harden them up. From my experience injuries come from unexpected or unseen hits. If they expect the hits they will see them coming and protect themselves accordingly.

High pressure training can only be a benefit for the real game.

Like one drill today, without any pressure. It looked amazing, very clean ball movement and exact working to structure. Come the pressure and that completely changes.

Running injuries, hammy's, calf, foot stuff is not usually from impacts but poor preparation.

Concussion on the other hand? A big question mark in our game.

Go hard or Go home

Training with Cotton Wool achieves nothing

Train with the 2018 Prelim result in the back of your mind...

This is a first time post.  I visited from Adelaide today.  I don’t read Demonland a lot other than at this time of the season, and really appreciate those who do training reports. But knowing people involved in the club, this is not the place to spend too much time in season! I thought I would add my bit to preseason, although it’s 3 hours later so I have probably already forgotten half of it and Kev above covered some of it.

I arrived at 9.15 and the players were already warming up.  I stayed till the very end, which was just after 1pm with the last 3 off the track being Steven May, Jack Viney, and Marty Hore. They finished with goal to goal repeat sprints, which at the end of a 4 hour session was impressive. Even more impressive is May was side by side with Viney doing 22-25 second 170m sprints after 4 hours of training.

It was about 80% ball work and 20% running at training. They started in 2 groups at each end doing non contact match sim inside the 50 arcs.  The emphasis was on kicking skills.  Every turnover was called out loud and clear by the coaching staff, even if was a poor that bounced.  While this was going on AVB, Petty, and Bradke were doing repeat 200-300m sprints around the outside. AVB was setting the pace and looked in great nick.  When he was leaving training he was saying that if 2019 was different he would have played in the back half of the year like 2018, and he feels he is 100%. From what I can tell he is doing lots of running but perhaps they don’t want to risk a Spargo like step on foot incident yet.

After the skills match sim it changed to full oval match sim with the non contact players standing out. Lever, Weideman, Jetta etc we’re not standing around, but doing a lot of explosive agility type work in the unused forward pocket.  The match sim was interesting.  It would start with a congested activity somewhere upfield with an emphasis on ground balls.  The players would repeatable roll the ball into a scrimmage, and then try and pick up and get a clearance and when they did just roll the ball back in. It kept going until the coaches blew a whistle which signalled it was real, and from a clearance they’d try and get it inside 50 to a lead.  It was pretty willing, evidenced by Tmac (I think) leading out at full tilt with Hore drifting back and KK trying to spoil.  Hore and KK were both flattened. Luckily no major harm although KK left training to get his elbow seen to.

After the full oval match sim they broke up into various groups doing different activities.  Mainly seemed to focus on skills, although some players would be cycled through activities that looked a bit like trying to work on explosiveness.  For example, 3 players would be on their stomachs, and the coach would roll a ball near 1 and call out.  2 would jump up, the closest to get the ground ball and the second to tackle.  Seemed to be working on recovery, getting to feet, evading or tackling etc.

Another group were totally focussed on kicking to the wing.  Others were doing 150m sprints, and other doing stoppages again with ground balls.  For the ground ball stoppages, the coaches were continuously calling out for longer handballs to the outside.

At one stage, Stafford was working on goal kicking.  Hunt and Weideman did a lot of work.  Then they setup a spot 40m out and had a camera directly in front and one to the side. Stafford was managing, and had Petracca, ANB, Oliver, Melksham, and Fritsch filmed for about 10 kicks each.  No one else. Petracca still has a lot of work to do and I’m sure his routine will be sorted.  Was still walking up to kick.  The rest looked pretty good, but all seemed to be told to get some forward momentum, or at least compared to Petracca seemed to be accelerating in to kick with pretty good results.  Especially Melksham who didn’t seem to miss.

Some of the highlights for me overall were Petracca.  He is in ripping nick, and ran in a group with Brayshaw and a few others in the repeat sprints.  He is in better running nick than ever, was right up the front, and looked to handle it better than Brayshaw. 

Another highlight was May.  It looked like he had to do extra’s, and he did not lag behind in any of the sprints.  His group included Max and he was side by side with him the entire way.  He also looks in great nick.  In one drill, there was a handball chain that ended with a player at 40m running toward goal.  May drilled everything.

The other was TMac.  He has his running legs, and was continuously getting in good positions and marking in the full oval match sim. 

Viney is doing all the running and more.  His foot is not a problem touch wood, and he is loving the program Burgess has given him.  Already he feels fitter than ever, and he did the extras. 

Oscar Mac looks in great nick and to have bulked up a lot.  In the inside 50 skills match sim his kicking is really good.  I didn’t see him miss a kick, which I probably couldn’t say about most of the squad. 

Overall, and I don’t have much to compare against as I didn’t see training last year, the squad looks in excellent nick.  I did talk to a few of the veteran supporters to ask how it compares to prior years.  They all seemed to think it’s the fittest they have seen them.

Great first post Duke

19 minutes ago, Robbie57 said:

Great first post Duke

I second that.

The major point I took from his post was that VDB could’ve played the back end of the season if we were in contention.

Hopeful signs that he’s a chance for rd 1.