In the absence of Harvey and Ghosty I'll do a quick summary.

Absent: Viney, Lever, Turner, Melksham, Rivers, Tmac, Hore, Campbell, McAdam and AMW

Rehab: Woey, May, Sesso doing some ball work and Hendo was running laps.

Great day at Gosch's, beautiful weather, warm with no wind. The players came out about an hour after scheduled time and did some run throughs to start with. They then broke up into three groups. The first played head and foot only volleyball, the second a short kicking drill exercise focusing on accurate low sharp kicks. The third, who were on the other side of the ground to me were doing some sort on handballing drill but I really didn't see much of it. They rotated through these drills which they did for about 10 minutes each. There was the usual goal kicking practice at the end but they didn't stay long and finished up after about 35 or 40 minutes.

The atmosphere was positive but reserved. No soccer games today and one onlooker noted Judd had an aeroplane ticket hanging out of his back pocket. Personally I didn't see it but you never know Pickett, you might get your bottle of Scotch yet.

So, no 6-6-6 set ups, nor manning up the most dangerous opposition player at a final ball up? They would appear to me to be important learnings, but then of course I am not the coach so what would I know?

Nice day for some volleyball I suppose...

13 minutes ago, monoccular said:

So, no 6-6-6 set ups, nor manning up the most dangerous opposition player at a final ball up? They would appear to me to be important learnings, but then of course I am not the coach so what would I know?

That would be the obvious thing to do.

18 minutes ago, monoccular said:

So, no 6-6-6 set ups, nor manning up the most dangerous opposition player at a final ball up? They would appear to me to be important learnings, but then of course I am not the coach so what would I know?

4 minutes ago, 48 Year Now said:

That would be the obvious thing to do.

You think they can work on that stuff in a 30 minute ‘recovery’ session?

I’m sure they do a lot more at Casey during their main session later in the week.

14 minutes ago, Dee Zephyr said:

You think they can work on that stuff in a 30 minute ‘recovery’ session?

I’m sure they do a lot more at Casey during their main session later in the week.

Well they had about 2 and a half minutes on Sunday to count to 18 players, maybe they need a little more time to organise themselves.

42 minutes ago, Dee Zephyr said:

You think they can work on that stuff in a 30 minute ‘recovery’ session?

I’m sure they do a lot more at Casey during their main session later in the week.

I thought that last quarter was the recovery session?

I do love that we have adopted player lead training. Might try it work. Rock up late, kick a few soccer balls. Work the first 3/4 of each day and then pull up stumps.

Sounds high performance to me

59 minutes ago, Dee Zephyr said:

You think they can work on that stuff in a 30 minute ‘recovery’ session?

I’m sure they do a lot more at Casey during their main session later in the week.

Yes. Its called learning from mistakes and being accountable.

They had time for volleyballs.

And its not written in blood the session only has to be 30 minutes.

9 minutes ago, 48 Year Now said:

And its not written in blood the session only has to be 30 minutes.

Recovery sessions are absolutely written in blood. Do too little and you won't be ready for higher-load sessions later in the week, not to mention the next match. Do too much and it's the reverse, you'll struggle later in the week.

A big thanks to Startifastbart first of all for turning up, everyone is in the doldrums, thinking that our three usual star reporters must have had something more important on today. That’s quite a few missing. Let’s hope the boys can get themselves up for Wet Toast, they will give themselves a huge chance.

The start of the no mercy month.

Prequel to the no mercy break, then the no mercy preseason. Then the no mercy season.

52 minutes ago, bing181 said:

Recovery sessions are absolutely written in blood. Do too little and you won't be ready for higher-load sessions later in the week, not to mention the next match. Do too much and it's the reverse, you'll struggle later in the week.

This was posted about last weeks recovery session (training, 22nd july) by ghost who walks.

"This morning the players had an indoor training session which was all about tackling. They were told to lay hard tackles and make them stick, also how to ‘shrug off’ tackles. It was long and intense and at the end they were told to now go about doing the exact same thing during play.

Tomorrow, the indoor session will be all about handballing."

It suggest there is flexibility to the workload in recover sessions.

Edited 16 hours ago16 hr by Kev

1 hour ago, bing181 said:

Recovery sessions are absolutely written in blood. Do too little and you won't be ready for higher-load sessions later in the week, not to mention the next match. Do too much and it's the reverse, you'll struggle later in the week.

Struggle more than last sunday.

53 minutes ago, Kev said:

This was posted about last weeks recovery session (training, 22nd july) by ghost who walks.

"This morning the players had an indoor training session which was all about tackling. They were told to lay hard tackles and make them stick, also how to ‘shrug off’ tackles. It was long and intense and at the end they were told to now go about doing the exact same thing during play.

Tomorrow, the indoor session will be all about handballing."

It suggest there is flexibility to the workload in recover sessions.

Do they do a training session on thinking? as they seem to have stopped doing that on sunday.

Any mention of the word "ruthless" at training?

I'd be almost tempted to leave a huge pile of butter on the Club's doorstep with a big sign saying "soft as butter" with it.

I remember way back in 2003 someone left chicken hearts at the Melbourne Football Club. It definitely angered David Neitz (you would never call him chicken hearted) at the time, but I think a repeat would actually be more fitting now after the humiliating choke against St. Kilda.

3 hours ago, bing181 said:

Recovery sessions are absolutely written in blood. Do too little and you won't be ready for higher-load sessions later in the week, not to mention the next match. Do too much and it's the reverse, you'll struggle later in the week.

so was Sunday’s last quarter “performance” if you could call it that, due to over training or under training?

2 hours ago, Willmoy1947 said:

The start of the no mercy month.

Prequel to the no mercy break, then the no mercy preseason. Then the no mercy season.

To whom is the no mercy directed? The players, the opposition? The MRO 😠?

Certainly there has been no mercy for the members.

3 hours ago, DeeZone said:

A big thanks to Startifastbart first of all for turning up, everyone is in the doldrums, thinking that our three usual star reporters must have had something more important on today. That’s quite a few missing. Let’s hope the boys can get themselves up for Wet Toast, they will give themselves a huge chance.

I was there today, DZ. I’m there every single time. I’m just done with posting training reports because the training threads are now just as unreadable as every other thread. The nastiness and negativity is too much.

3 hours ago, Kev said:

This was posted about last weeks recovery session (training, 22nd july) by ghost who walks.

"This morning the players had an indoor training session which was all about tackling. They were told to lay hard tackles and make them stick, also how to ‘shrug off’ tackles. It was long and intense and at the end they were told to now go about doing the exact same thing during play.

Tomorrow, the indoor session will be all about handballing."

It suggest there is flexibility to the workload in recover sessions.

There isn’t flexibility, Kev. Every form of training be it individual or as a team or in groups is structured, and lengths of sessions are set.

2 hours ago, demon3165 said:

Do they do a training session on thinking? as they seem to have stopped doing that on sunday.

I hope it has hit them that they need to be switched on for the entire game.

My guess is they play their hearts out for the rest of the season. They are possibly suffering more than us at their application, lack of will, and intelligence.

Training with the soccer ball and being player led has failed. I didn’t want to turn up today as I was feeling vocal and may have voiced my opinion of the recovery sessions being a waste of time and gives them the opportunity to be in an opt-out mode, which may have been reflected on the weekend.

Good to hear that they have changed it up.

Edited 12 hours ago12 hr by Kev

3 hours ago, Kev said:

This was posted about last weeks recovery session (training, 22nd july) by ghost who walks.

"This morning the players had an indoor training session which was all about tackling. They were told to lay hard tackles and make them stick, also how to ‘shrug off’ tackles. It was long and intense and at the end they were told to now go about doing the exact same thing during play.

Tomorrow, the indoor session will be all about handballing."

It suggest there is flexibility to the workload in recover sessions.

Not being facetious kev, but do you think that rather than contradicting Bing's point it actually reinforces it?

I mean, it sounds like we significantly changed our recovery program, presumably to increase the likelihood we would coming out firing given our woeful starts goody referenced in the post blues presser.

We do in fact come out firing and are all over the Saints.

Before falling in a compete heap, and stopping to a walk in the last quarter.

It's hardly a stretch to suggest that such a dramatic change to the recovery program potentially contributed to us being more fatigued in the last q than we have been in recent weeks, and otherwisemight have been (and if so fatigue would def contribute to some of the brain fades we saw).

Edited 12 hours ago12 hr by binman

11 minutes ago, Ghostwriter said:

There isn’t flexibility, Kev. Every form of training be it individual or as a team or in groups is structured, and lengths of sessions are set.

I don’t mean flexible for the players to decide, but as a program that is devised by the coaching/training team.

1 minute ago, binman said:

We do in fact come out firing and are all over the Saints.

Before falling in a compete heap, and stopping to a walk in the last quarter.

It's hardly a stretch to suggest that such a dramatic change to the recovery program potentially contributed to us being more fatigued in the last q than we have been in recent weeks (and if so fatigue would def contribute to some of the brain fades we saw).

I believe they switched off, thought they had it in the bag and weren't able to adjust quickly enough mentally, so as to turn the momentum around. They were in shock, not fatigued.

In the previous seasons much of our momentum changes happened after the quarter ended, and the coaches restructured and directed.

I did think we had turned that around this year and the players were able to play better tempo and arrest the momentum back went it happened.

Ruthless is the right word to get them atuned to.

Edited 12 hours ago12 hr by Kev

11 minutes ago, binman said:

Not being facetious kev, but do you think that rather than contradicting Bing's point it actually reinforces it?

Yes, Bing could be right about the fatiguing part and therefore effecting the game, but not about the amount of load being written in blood, as they were prepared to change that.

Intense tackling can be exhausting but not the same as running the kilometres. Still believe it was between their ears.

Some of the changes this year they have been trying is the running program integrated into the skills work. The emphasis is not being an athlete, but a footballer. My guess is they will be doing more pure running next preseason.

Edited 12 hours ago12 hr by Kev

If I wasn't just thinking I would ignore my intuition telling me that the last quarter was quietly relayed to one team that it was going to be completely different in composition from the previous three as being no stoppages and all in, without free kicks or anything that would look slow.

So it came to pass.