TRAINING: Monday 9th January 2023

DEESPENCER'S TRAINING REPORT

The 4 unsighted Kozzy, Petty, Hunter and Oliver . Lots of players in different numbers making it confusing.

Brayshaw mostly doing some kick to kick and repeat jogging with Adams and Verrell.

May and Harmes were in more drills then pulled out for light stuff.

Burgoyne, Deak and Joel Smith on light duties. Joel did some solid repeat sprints. AMW on the watt bike.

For a solid period they split in to 3 groups. Group A did a drill from the half forward flank working through token pressure 4 on 1 to then hit up 2 leading forwards v 2 defenders with another defender dropping back covering leading lanes. Some good hit up kicks in this.

The other 2/3rds rotated through a bigger drill using about half the ground. A long kick out of the backline went to the 2 rucks (Max and Grundy had some good marking contests) from which the emphasis was on super quick transition back inside 50 and using the switch or diagonal as much as possible.

T Mc, Brown, Schache, JVR all prominent.

It wasn’t even numbers or full pressure but the speed on the ball from the mids/backs/high half forwards was really impressive. Some nice kicks to leads and up over the defenders too.

JVR had a ball bounce off his hands and Jefferson arced across from his own lead, swooped on the crumb to gather it in the air, straightened and finished with ease. It was a bit like a taller right footed Fritsch with the touch of class.

Kynan Brown looked comfortable mixing it in traffic and like he has some zip in close. Kye Turner looks a similar size to our other tall backs, seems to have good athleticism and didn’t do anything that stood out too much. But the defenders weren’t tasked with any true competitive drills. 

I noticed a couple of very clean Bill Laurie moments and he’s certainly changed his shape. Howes had a beautiful spearing kick to Ben Brown’s chest at one stage too.

SLARTIBARTFAST'S TRAINING REPORT

Players were out early doing some stretches, light kick to kick and a few of the boys were doing goal kicking where they ran between a line of poles on each side of them and kicked over a metal "man" for goal.  The standout was Oliver Sestan who is a beautiful kick for goal.  Tmac, Melk and  KFW were others doing this drill.

They then broke into groups for the 2 Km time trial.  A number of different groups started from different parts of the ground and they didn't finish where they started so it was hard to tell who "won".  After the time trial they then went into the drills described by DeeSpencer.

Players to impress me today were Bowser who looked really good and kicked the ball beautifully, Kade Chandler who was in everything and also kicked very well for goal, Seston who did well in the drills and again kicked very well for goal and Tmac who was moving really well and was very clean with his marking.

KEV MARTIN'S TRAINING REPORT

Time trial day. Tough day for it given the heat and dryness. Tomlinson killed it, looked like ANB might burn him after he passed him 400 out, Adam was having nothing of it. Jack Viney the other stand out, also got around his players afterwards, and supported Verral who really struggled. Ben Brown was running very well, almost caught Gawny. Grundy was a bit slower than what I expected.

A few absentees, Petty, Oliver, Pickett, and Hunter. I wasn't sure if Burgoyne (43) was there. A run on a player with 33 on his back looks like him.

Light duties included, May, Harmes, D.Smith and Brayshaw.

Poor old J.Smithy, in rehab mainly by himself. Appeared to be lower back/left hip problems. Moniz-wakefield also rehabbing.

No kick to Kick, to start, but into drills where they have cross angles and move around each other. First with handballs, then with kicking. They use a variety of movement, with the last formation being schimmys and movement to four points with some defensive pressure.

They're into sims with two groups, not much tackling First group start with a scramble kick out of the backline and a coach brings the ball to ground, and they swoop outside the 50 and create a delivery inside the 50. The other group kicks a long ball out of the backline, to the talls competing, which then gets moved back to the forwards. A few of the players rotated through the different styles.

Into two groups talls and smalls. The talls do one on one marking, and the smalls tackling each other. The tackiling had some competitive vibe added to it.

The goal kicking drills were performed in a completely different way. The alley is formed between the stakes and a body model that is kicked over. One on each side of goal at about 35°. Williams stands behind the model and gives them immediate feedback. Mainly about the ball drop, how straight it is and where the foot contacts the ball. He knew if the kick was goaled or not, even without looking. It was the most accurate kicking I have seen at training. Keep it up Chocco.

After the goal kicking, they went to 8 repetitions of about 150 meter runs. The last three to leave were, Tracc, Viney and BBB, using the Williams method and with his feedback to get the set goal kicking right. 

Good start to 2023, they looked sharp and the noise volume was encouraging. Appeared happy to be back into "it'.

 Addit: I didn't see Hibbo get attention.  My thought was he was back to full training. Hope it is not that niggling calf/achilles. 

TOUGH KENT'S TRAINING REPORT

I got down to training today. We settled on the fence. Choco Williams came over for a chat. My two boys played soccer with Leo and Bella McDonald, kids of Tom. It was good to be back.

There was no Oliver, Petty, Pickett or Lachie Hunter today. Goody and Ooze were MIA. Troy Chaplin seemed to be calling the shots. Kye Turner and Kynan Brown (son of Nathan) joined the main group. Trent Burgoyne was on a modified program. Joel Smith and Andy Moniz-Wakefield were in re-hab. Gus Brayshaw did a lot of things with the main group, but is on some sort of modified program. James Harmes was wearing a green hat signifying that he was a ‘non-contact’ player.

First up was the dreaded 2km time trial. The players were split into 4 groups of similar running ability. The two more able groups went first. Adam Tomlinson led the top group from start to finish, looking very fit in beating home Nibbla in second place. JJ came third, closely followed by Ed Langdon. For those interested in times, I timed the third group. Rick Lever won this group in a time of 6:30, Bailey Laurie not far behind him in 6:36. Josh Schache won the big fella’s group, ahead of a fast finishing Gawn. Ben Brown really impressed me. He hammered home behind Max and looked the best he has since late 2021. Brodie Grundy seemed to labour, which is not surprising considering his injury problems. The young blokes struggled. Will Verral in particular, took over 8 minutes to complete his 2kms and he had Jack Viney for company on his last lap, with Vin yapping to him the whole way home.  

The warm up drills were focused on quick ball movement and hitting short targets under pressure. One ball movement drill I found fascinating was red v whites. The whites (defenders) would move the ball up the line. The reds would receive the ball at half back and sling shot the ball forward through quick hands and feet into the corridor. The forwards would all set up high across half forward. They would then lead far and wide, especially back into the open spaces of the forward line towards the goal square. There were no indiscriminate kicks inside 50. Each kick, be it long or short, was towards a leading Brown, McDonald or Fritsch, mostly moving back into an empty forward zone. This was very different to our long kicks into pockets last year.

I won’t ramble any further. I’m happy to answer any questions.