TRAINING: Monday 13th January 2025

Better late than never … and quite frankly, there’s very little to report other than that training took place at Casey Fields this morning, that Tracc was there nursing his rib injury and that some photographs are on the club’s social media including this one of Clarrie in Raging Bull stance that gives rise for confidence.

The other news is that the club has a new train on player in 185cm Dandenong Stingrays midfielder Noah Hibbins-Hargreaves (love the hyphenated name which is just so fitting for the MFC).

The 2025 draft prospects training at your club this week

H-H has been with the Stingrays program for a couple of seasons and was a regular them last year. He should feel at home training with former teammate Harvey Langford. As far as I know, he’s not tied to the club in any way and if that’s the case, he’s available to all clubs in this year’s national draft. 

The Herald Sun’s Josh Barnes has posted an article on Code Sports entitled “Track Watch: Christian Petracca trains days after cracking ribs at Melbourne training”. Summary -

• Christian Petracca was on light duties but showed no signs of discomfort from his cracked ribs at Melbourne training.

• there’s no plan in place to return the Norm Smith medallist to full training but he will be able to keep his fitness up as his ribs recover.

• the club didn’t hesitate in getting into contact today, stepping into physical centre bounce and defensive set up drills involving heavy tackling.

• other players in the non-contact group were skipper Max Gawn, defender Jake Lever and Taj Woewodin. 

• players who impressed were:-

* Kysaiah Pickett – was impressive in bursting out of the middle of the ground in a centre bounce drill.

* Tom Campbell – with Max on the sidelines, he showed his deft ruckwork in the centre.

* Shane McAdam – was hampered physically to start this pre-season but he showed a flash of his goalkicking ability with a nice dribble goal from deep in a pocket.

• Christian Salem limped off the track at one point, pointing to his lower right leg and seeking attention from the medical staff.