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TRAINING: Wednesday 4th December 2019

Demonland
Demonland
in Melbourne Demons

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1 hour ago, Demonland said:

Two quick ones of the new boys.

Harley.png

MitchBrown.png

Did they remove part of his calf, or the whole dam thing? Hard to strain it if you don't have one I guess. 

Seriously though, pull a miracle and get that bloke right and we gain an A grader filling a huge hole (small forward) for free. Haven't been this keen on a recruit for long time.

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    I arrived at about 9.15 with things well underway.  I won't repeat what Demonland has said about rehab and missing players only to confirm that TMac was doing gentle agility runs and small kicks in rehab when I arrived but didn't look in any trouble at all. 

    The missing as far as I could tell were Jones, KK, AVB, Spargo.

    The drills included the "handball game" where you had to handball to a teammate and run the ball down the "ground" for a goal.  A missed handball or a "touched" player with ball was a turnover.  They did this at full steam for about 30 minutes and looked exhausted at the end of it.  Then onto the ground sims and I'm not surprised some of the skills were off.  The was gentle contact in the drills but no physical pressure.

    On the sidelines were a rotating group with a heavy emphasis on tackling technique with a coach I didn't know.  There was wrestling and some exhausting looking drills one which included diving under a person's leg and then bunny hopping back over them.  They seemed to do about 20 of these.  The new boys were involved in all these but didn't do the match sim stuff.

    They finished with running.  Most were doing 100 metre run throughs but Gawn, Preuss, Trac, JJ, Dunkley, Sparrow, Langdon and Brayshaw were doing repeat 300 metre runs around the boundary.  JJ won each one in about 50 seconds.  They did about 6 with somewhere between 20 seconds and two minutes intervals.  I left when the footy's were put away shortly after.

    Some player observations:

    • Trac.  It's been said before but he looks in ripping condition and just looks a cut above everyone else with his speed, ball handling, kicking and agility.  He stood out like dogs testicles. 
    • Joel Smith - trained well I thought particularly in the handball games.  No sign of any residual physical issues from last season.
    • JJordan - looks in really good shape.  He doesn't look quick in a straight line but had no trouble in the handball drills finding space and executing.  His running is great.
    • Neita - first time I'd really seen him.  Not what I thought.  He's a half back flank/wing runner.  Not a big body but found a lot of space in the sims although his kicking was a bit off.  He wasn't the only one.
    • ANB - boy, can this bloke run.  Was in everything but no noticeable improvement in execution.
    • Hibberd - how can someone with such a nice kicking action miss so many targets?  He looks to have taken off some weight over the off season.
    • Jackson - reports about his poor kicking have been grossly overstated. 
    • Kossi - will be a fan favourite.  Didn't see much of him today as the young kids clearly being managed.
    • Rivers - moved nicely and not shy.  All he did today was good but I didn't see him under any pressure.
    • Hunt - looks good but struggles to get involved.
    • Sparrow - second in the runs behind JJ and was involved.
    • Chandler - did some really nice things.  Has pace, was sure with the ball and clean.  Impressive
    • Dunkley - the invisible man.  Probably got heaps but just seems to be one of those players you don't notice.

    It was windy today and by the time they did the sims they'd gone hard for about 90 minutes.  I'm not surprised they were a bit scrappy.  But if Trac stays fit - get excited.

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    Every report so far has trac killing it, I sense a break out year coming up although he was good this year 

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    1 hour ago, dazzledavey36 said:

    Jesus Petracca looks fat.

    You nearly got it right - it's Christian, not Jesus.

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    1 minute ago, Demonland said:

    Who is Johnson?

    Did you mean Jackson?

    I could say autocorrect but I’d be lying. Jackson of course with apologies to the man himself. 
     

    Perhaps I should change my name to Old Baghdad Bob.

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    I thought Preuss had big thighs but Trac’s look seriously powerful in the pic earlier. It’s very hard not to get excited about Trac for 2020. Thanks to all for the quality reporting. 

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    24 minutes ago, Demonland said:

    Who is Johnson?

    Did you mean Jackson?

    Big Bob #16?  Good at contributing to MFC flags ... about half of them if I am not mistaken. 

    Edited by monoccular

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    22 minutes ago, Baghdad Bob said:

    I could say autocorrect but I’d be lying. Jackson of course with apologies to the man himself. 
     

    Perhaps I should change my name to Old Baghdad Bob.

    The aging process gets us all BB.

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    21 minutes ago, Demonland said:

    @Baghdad Bob interested in your thoughts on Mitch Brown. 

    On drafting:  Moneyball selection, very good depth and can play competent AFL footy.  I support it.

    On training:  He seemed mainly to be at the other end to me and by the end of training looked spent.  Look he's the player he was at Essendon and will be the same for us.  Good luck to him but I suspect if he plays the FD will be disappointed that Weed or TMac haven't kept him out (injury or form).

     

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    34 minutes ago, Demonland said:

    Who is Johnson?

    Did you mean Jackson?

    To be fair to poor ole BB, "Jack" is the familiar form of "John".  So, maybe BB was just using the lad's formal name of JOHNson.  To the rest of us larrikans, he can remain as JACKson!

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    1 hour ago, Baghdad Bob said:
    • Joel Smith - trained well I thought particularly in the handball games.  No sign of any residual physical issues from last season.
    • JJordan - looks in really good shape.  He doesn't look quick in a straight line but had no trouble in the handball drills finding space and executing.  His running is great.

    Thanks BB!

    I would love to see Smith be injury free all year to see what he can do.  Mister utility and is a great athlete. Was he still training with the backs?  Id like to see him fwd.

    Also pumped to see JJ in action. great to hear he is a quality runner

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    1 hour ago, M_9 said:

    You nearly got it right - it's Christian, not Jesus.

    Well he's  not slimmest yet 

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    The amount of people talking about Petraccas thighs is a bit of a worry.

    At least its not in an injury sense I suppose!

    Edited by JakovichScissorKick

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    One of my concerns when reading the training reports is we are still turning the ball over and missing targets when not under pressure. 
     

    I sure as hell hope we don’t repeat our turnovers and pathetic skills next season otherwise it will just be another lost season. 

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    I'll preface by saying I'm just making an assumption here but groups of 6 to 8 at a time were pulled from whatever main drill they are doing at the time to do intensive exercises described above (grappling, burpees, leap frog [pictured above]). They were then thrown back into the drills and in my uninformed opinion that was to simulate the end of quarters/matches and to get players used to kicking, handballing & competing when spent.

    These groups rotated throughout training even during match simulation. By the end of the footy skills part of the session players were understandably tired and hence the mistakes. I guess that's why they are training this way  and as the fitness levels rise and they get used to this then less mistakes will be made.

    That's the way I see it but perhaps I'm way off.

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    2 minutes ago, Demonland said:

    I'll preface by saying I'm just making an assumption here but groups of 6 to 8 at a time were pulled from whatever main drill they are doing at the time to do intensive exercises described above (grappling, burpees, leap frog [pictured above]). They were then thrown back into the drills and in my uninformed opinion that was to simulate the end of quarters/matches and to get players used to kicking, handballing & competing when spent.

    These groups rotated throughout training even during match simulation. By the end of the footy skills part of the session players were understandably tired and hence the mistakes. I guess that's why they are training this way  and as the fitness levels rise and they get used to this then less mistakes will be made.

    That's the way I see it but perhaps I'm way off.

    You're bang on @Demonland - we've got elite staff now, exposing the athletes to discomfort, both physical and psychological, in a style called 'graded exposure'. They'll learn they can cope with the fatigue, build their base lines and capacity and thrive and execute more consistently.

    Goodwin has built an impressive team of staff in the off season

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