Thanks WDD Greatley appreciated, great observations and well articulated, sounds like the boys were really put through their paces.👍😁

10 hours ago, dpositive said:

Might have been Ben from Bridge road Brewery. He is a snowboarder and was one of the first small brewers in the area.

He has also always mentored and supported new brewers in the area including Bright brewery, he was always happy to help them with advice and supplies while they got started. He has now expanded into Brunswick and an outlet at the airport.

Yes, Bridge Rd. I have this mental block and nearly always call it Bright Brewery.

I’ll be at Melb airport on my way to Royal Melb next week so will see if I can snaffle some! Thanks for the heads up!!

My bad!

2 hours ago, Where Demons Dare said:

Just an after thought, I'd love Melbourne to come to Wodonga and train at the state of the art facilities at Baranduda fields. There's a huge Melbourne following up here for some reason. A lot of ex-melbournians have moved to rural cities including myself, and I think it'd be great for the MFC to have a bigger presence in this area being so close to Bright. Albury/Wodonga love their footy, and the MFC should be doing community camps up here and building our supporter base.

You and me both mate considering im based in Albury.

I see Richmond did their community camp in my childhood town of Yarrawonga...bit jealous.

They could easily make use of both Wodonga Bulldogs and Raiders footy ground facilities and there is enough gyms in town to use if need.

15 hours ago, Where Demons Dare said:

We arrived in the quaint little town of Myrtleford at 9am with a small crowd of primary school kids and roughly 15-20 onlookers. The boys were already into their drills with two different groups on either side of the wings, roughly 15 - 20 players either side.

Rehab:

Viney, Matthews, Henderson, AMW, McAdam, Jefferson and later Bowey who looked quite ginger (pun intended). Viney and Matthews doing repeat walking up and down a flight of stairs with some black devices in their mouths. Not sure of its purpose but it could possibly be to ensure they breathe through their nose? They then followed up with hand and eye coordination and reflex drills (juggling, ball tossing to one another in rapid fire) at which point Henderson joined them. After that finished the 3 of them spent the rest of the session doing weight training. The other rehabbers in AMW, McAdam and Jefferson were all doing repeat 100m boundary runs for the majority of the session followed by some touch work (reflexes) where a trainer would bullet kick to Hendo or McAdam who were standing 1 meter in front of each other and they had to trick each other into marking or letting it go so the guy behind him marked it, if the ball dropped the guy in-front won. It was amusing to watch. Hendo got the better of McAdam. Jefferson integrated into the main group with some drills.

Main training:

I was mainly focusing on the big group in-front of us, where they would use just the arcs from back 50 to fwd 50 working on ball movement. In this drill it was a 5 v 7 match up with the bigger group attacking and the smaller defending transition. The bigger group would use either corridor or wing, there was no real preference. I was paying attention to the new kids on these drills and was really impressed with Onley, he's a great size and so agile. Taylor was a bit disappointing with his kicking, he shanked quite a few kicks.

The next drill was 5 v 3 using 3/4 ground ball movement drills, taking the ball from the back 50 to a forward marking close to goal.

Mihocek, Tmac, Adams and Campbell doing 1v1 marking/spoil drills on each other while a trainer kicked in a high ball deep in the fwd 50.

The next drill had the boys doing quick handball movement where it was a 2 v 3 match-up with the trainers acting as the defenders and there were 3 attacking players who had to get past them within a 25m coned off area. Once the attackers had reached the end of the cones the next 3 were straight into play. It was non stop and the boys were pretty gassed by the end of it. Culley, Langford, Pickett and Windsor were the best in these drills.

The boys then went on to do 9 v 9 full ground ball drills trying to score end to end. There was a passage where CJ took on Kosi through the corridor thinking he could break away but was quickly taken down by Kosi. CJ was filthy with himself. The boys laid some crunching tackles during these plays. I saw JVR take down May and then quickly get up to pressure the loose ball in play and take down the next player. I was impressed with JVR's repeat efforts. The boys were absolutely gassed from these drills at it's the closest to match sim they could replicate. A lot of the boys were on their haunches sucking in the big ones trying to recover. I don't think I've ever seen Kosi so gassed he and many of the boys took a full minute to get back up.

The players then broke into their lines with their respective coaches (fwds, mids, defenders) I was paying close attention to who was in each group. Mentha and Laurie was in the fwds group and Chandler gave Laurie a big hug saying "welcome back, we missed you". Sharp, White and Latrelle also in the forward line. Rivers, Taylor and Turner in defence. Tholstrup and Culley with the mids.

As the training was drawing to a close, the entire main group would do 80m - 90m repeat sprints that they had to complete in 10/11 seconds and rest about 20-30 seconds before going again. They did about 10 of these repeat sprints.

Now that training was finished, Kingy brought the group in for a quick chat and then sent the players off to sign autographs and to some meet and greets with the locals.

Observations:

Draftees -

• Onley looked really impressive, I thought he moved very well and was so agile for a big mid. His kicking was a bit hit and miss. One definitely to watch.

• Taylor still very green, but he did some great tackles and pressure during ball movement drills. Kicking was a bit iffy today.

• Latrelle integrated well with the group, he moves well and has great pressure, he looks the most likely of our first draftee to break into the team.

• White was really good, he already seems like a regular player. I think doing the pre season last year with Melbourne has helped him to fit in right away with the team.

• Matthews was obviously doing rehab but is a good size and didn't look that much smaller than Hendo or Viney. He'll be good for us.

• Berry looks to be a medium defender in size and build. He'll need a bit of time to catch up to the AFL standard fitness levels, but I'm hopeful he'll strengthen our backline in time to come. Has leadership qualities.

That's about all I can think of for now. I hope you guys enjoy the report.

Cheers.

The items in their mouths were more than likely something like (or was) an oxyfit breath trainer to help with breathe improvement, stamina ie train your lungs.

If it was a mask then it replicates high altitude breathing.

Thanks for the report 👍

Edited 22 minutes ago22 min by Gorgoroth

It was nice having the training files to distract me yesterday as I spent quite a few hours in hospital yesterday having Angiogram to gauge the extent of a main artery blockage into my heart. Fortunately I did not require a Stent and can manage the issue with medication, phew.!!😥 big relief for me and family, a bit sore but extremely happy that I didn’t waste my 2026 MFC Membership.lol.!! I certainly Bleed Red ❤️but couldn’t discern any 💙.