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Thought this was an interesting one. At the end of the session, Trac and Goody did one-on-one kicking of a tennis ball. A mate of mine leads a large group of Auskick kids at Arden St. He gets them to do this each week for the whole year to improve their ball drop, particulary following the ball down with their hand, position of head over the ball, height of ball drop and placement of ball on the top of the foot. Obviously a tennis ball has less forgiveness than a footy. A couple of mm either side and the tennis ball is sprayed away from the target. Now I'm a keen fan of Tracc, but I've always had questions over the height of his ball drop and the position of the ball at point of impact with his foot. When it works for him it looks sublime, but that's not always the case. All players can improve and I reckon Goody has taken a personal interest in improving Tracc's kicking action. A big tick from me. PS. I might add that Goody got it right more times than Tracc

Made the trek from The Manor to have a squiz at training. The blustery wind wasn't ideal and , unfortunately putting up with Moonie's bluster was less so. Some observations I wanted to have a look at KK but he was only doing a bit of running and some short kicking drills with Bedford and Chandler. I think he said he was about 6 weeks away from being right but I may have misheard that. May Viney and Hannan were also on light duties but May joined in some drills later. He didn't look troubled but didn't seem overly switched on either. I'm not a JKH fan but he did everything right when I was watching him - very sharp. Weid was another who looked very good in everything he did - confident ball handling and good kicking. Oliver must be just about right. He played wide in the simulations but laid a very strong tackle on some unfortunate and was also sure in his ball handling. I had never seen Pruess in the flesh and watched him carefully. He did a sure handed pick up and his long kicking seemed fine. In the drills where he had to short pass he was very deliberate. He found his targets ok but would too slow in a game. He'll usually be looking to get the hand pass off I reckon. At one point Pruess, Gawn and Bradke were doing throw in drills directed by Stafford. Obviously they weren't doing full on body smashing but they were jockeying for position. Preuss came out on top most times. As would be expected Bradke didn't get a sniff against those two. Stafford also took Pruess and Gawn for some goal kicking practise. A few times he indicated modifications to grip and drop to them both. It was good to see Bernie Vince assisting in some drills although he was far less vociferous than I would have expected. Melkshake looked a gun. I watched him in one on one marking drills against Trac - he absolutely towelled him up about 4 times in a row. Right at the end Nev had a couple of the young blokes to work on body positioning in the marking contest. They showed great respect in the way they hung on whatever he said. After that strenuous session Moonie and I had a couple of quenching libations at the old corner pub.

Just heard Tmac will play on Sunday in Shep. Boys just started doing some run throughs.

I just don't like the vague description "mental health issue". I grew up with someone who suffered from major mental illness all of their life, and saying you suffer from "depression" as an excuse to get out of certain situations, to me devalues the very real suffering of people struggling with this issue. We all get depressed sometimes, but most of us do not get to know the "black dog" of utter despair. To cite mental health issues too many times risks the public becoming immune to the real problems of people with mental illness living their lives out of the spotlight. The public will become cynical and less sympathetic to ALL sufferers is they suspect players are using the system to cover up something else. Sorry to be so heavy, but this is a sore point with me.

I think so Andy. Jordan has a very good size about him in terms of build. Saw Milkshake take a couple of ripping contested marks in the sim. After one of them he turned and speared a 50m pass inwards to Weid (I think). A thing of beauty

1. Had another daughter. Well, my wife gave birth to it so technically I didn't have it, but I was there cheering her on with the membership number ready to go in my phone. 2. Took a break from here. 3. Watched as much NBA and EPL as humanly possible. Absolutely pumped for the footy to get rolling, though. Only 3 or so weeks to go (for the real stuff, anyway...)

Ill come back here later. Took me ages to get BBO away from a bunch of young women. At a pub now trying to stop him from throwing jugs of beer down his turkey neck. Quite embarrassing really.

1. Once trade and draft were done we welcomed Junior Demon number 4 into the household early December. First preseason baby out of the lot. Developing nicely but still off legs. 2. Disagreed daily with the lovely about the best way to soothe baby, White Noise or MFC theme song. 3. Watched the Elimination and Semi-Final highlights and perused DL an endless amount of times during sleepless nights.

Tmac did a presser after training and rattled off a list of senior players who won't play. Can't remember them, but no surprises from memory. I tried to do bunny ears on him while the cameras were going, but got slammed into a tree by Todd Viney. He's still got the mongrel instinct! I'm still lucky to have my jaw intact

Just back from training - left about 11.45. As reported KK and Hannan arrived early and did a bit of gentle running. Both on light duties. There were two match sim drills that I saw, Viney and May didn't participate in the first but did in the second. Both looked comfortable, particularly May. TMac did the whole session. Nobody else that I saw was on restricted duties. I liked the look of Jordan, seems to have a lovely kick, he didn't miss one when I was watching and the conditions were difficult with a strong wind. Any questions please ask.

1. Got married. Tiny ceremony by the harbour up here in Sydney. Then a little dinner by the sea with a small collection of close friends. 2. Got married, again. But correctly to the same person. This time in Vietnam, for the benefit and approval of the new side of my family which by my count is literally (and I use literally correctly) 30 times the size of my 'old' family. Officialy events occured in two different cities and on three separate days and involved three different outfits. Regretfully, I was unable to find a suitabl red-and-blue Ao Dai. Oh, yeah, and these events also blended into the Vietnamese new year, Tet. My third Tet in Vietnam but they never get simple, closest analogy would be if you ran a big traditional extended family Christmas together with a fairly committed effort at both the fun kids-version and the spiritual sides of easter, all at once. 3. Took a deep breath and sat quietly until the room stopped spinning. That took most of the rest of February.

Got to say, nearly everything JKH had done had been very good.

All of them were that I saw. KK said that he pulled up a bit tight last week. So they’ll back it off for a week or two then build him back up. Didn’t say exactly when as he probably doesn’t know himself. I guess we’ll have to wait and see how much progress he makes in the next few weeks.

Oscar Baker took Max down in match sim tackle. Gave him a bit of lip too. Good on him Caught up with BBO. What a disgrace. Took 10 mins to get away from him...

The wind is strong but quite fresh still. KK and Hannan running/walking laps Tmac reckons he'll play vs Tigers, I asked him

My egg and bacon sandwich is delicious The coffee is not too bad either Going to be a warm and windy session, and that's just me

Leadership material written all over him.

We do forget that Goody was a bloody fantastic footballer! If he had played for a big Victorian club his name would be right up there with the Buckleys and Hirds of the games.

I agree Moon. I reckon he’ll have a breakout year. He played some good games toward the end of last year and he was just about our best in the practice match last week. He looked the goods today.

Tell you what, Kade Chandler has a beautiful left foot. He was doing a skills sess on the side with Bradke and Bedford. Nailed it every time

Warning: I'm going to training today with @Bitter but optimistic. I'm very fearful of what outrageous get up he'll be sporting. Won't be difficult for trackwatchers to spot him. More later.

Yes, I agree with you. I didn't want to bring up specific examples, but the Gary Lyon one was in my mind. But this excuse is not limited to the AFL. How many times have you heard, "Why did you beat up/ assault/ road rage/ steal etc." "Because I have mental health issues/ I was depressed/ I had a bad childhood." What an insult to all the good people who have suffered all these things and never harmed anybody. It seems this is the way society is heading now. No one takes responsibility for their actions. It is always someone else's fault, or something made them do it. My father spent 4 years as a POW in Berlin in WW2. He didn't do bad things and then blame it on his horror experience. Claiming mental illness seems to be like a fad now. It makes me burn.

To be fair, we couldn't even hold THAT title at our lowest ebb...

Spot on DG.

Tom McDonald is by far our best media speaker when it come these kind of interviews. Love listening to Tmac.

Most of the experts will say that a kicking style is set in concrete by the time the kids are 14 or 15, so good on Goody for identifying Christians kicking issues & secondly, actually trying to rectify them. This will more than likely emphasize the concentration side of the craft rather that changing his style.....Good work!

I think your heart has got in front of your head Megatron. He was one of the better players but not close our best. Did you not see Gawn or Brayshaw? His game was one of his best ones and would get him another game the next week. In my view he was 9th or 10 best which is a good game.

I really like the little I have seen and heard of Chandler. We seem to be drafting players that have had to work bloody hard to get a chance (AVB, Frisch, Sparrow), and with pretty good results. Chandler seems to also fit that bill.

Chandler might be small, but he can fly! Climbed over Bedford to take a terrific mark

Tim Smith getting his lower right leg looked at. Match sim quite impressive given the strong breeze. Max took a towering mark 25 out. Tmac running quite freely, no strapping on knees

It is very sad that the mental health issue loophole is being exploited. To my mind if you are well enough to play you are well enough to be drug tested. By condoning this loophole club doctors, AFLA, AFL etc are doing a great disservice to players with genuine issues. It may even get to the stage where such 'clean' players don't take time out for genuine mental health issues for fear of being labelled drug test avoiders. Can't help think that there are players with genuine and serious issues that are not seeking treatment. Majak comes to mind. This loophole does not help their cause.

Jordan Lewis and I don’t have him in the current best 22. The significance of his decision to come to Melbourne can never be undersestimated for the credibility it gave a previously basketcase club. It also reinforced to the players, staff and long suffering supporters we were not only on the right track but heading into contention for a shot at a flag.

Wadda We Sing BIG CALL “Gary Pert takes over as CEO of AFL whilst simultaneously CEO of Melbourne amid hysterical appeals from 17 other clubs and removes Essendon from the AFL allowing Tasmania to field a team." "Jack Watts becomes addicted to plain flour and is is admitted into rehab after illegal german immigrant is found in his locker." Top 8 Melbourne West Coast Sydney Footscray GWS Adelaide Port Adelaide Brisbane Premier: Melbourne Wooden Spoon: Collingwood Brownlow: Angus Brayshaw Coleman: Tom MacDonald Rising Star: Jack Sparrow

Lol Mick Malthouse

1. Listened to Macquarie Sports Radio everyday in case they mentioned Melbourne.. (love ya schwarta) 2. Pretended to like cricket for about a week... 3. Read demonland more than I did during the season...

1. Checked Demonland for training updates and any other skerrits of information about the Dees. 2. Watch the Elimination and Semi Finals on repeat. 3. See 1 & 2.

1. (Almost) booted up the laptop to access Demonland around 5 times per day for news and profiles. 2. Took up golf again, playing in solitude, every day from the light of dawn in order to 'deep-think' the Dees for 2019. 3. Planned my travels, fares, routes and accommodation across to Melbourne (from Adelaide) according to the footy fixture and booked these in advance of the start of the season. Gotta go .... golf course is 16 kms away and it will be daybreak when I get there ....

1. watched the melb finals games (exc. prelim) about 3 times. 2. studied the hell out of the draft. 3. Threw darts at a pic of Peter Bell stalling the trade week.

Oh, Mick... must be sad to hold a bitter grudge for so many years

If you found that funny you must own The Big Bang Theory in 4K. Anyway if Danger is all for it, I couldn’t be more against it.

Coach = Paul Roos Would like to see Daniel Cross in there too.

Jeff White - Darren Bennett - Byron Pickett - Peter Moore etc

They're not. If the police catch them with drugs they get charged. Simple. It is not the AFL's - or any employer for that matter - job to catch and punish players who break the law. If it is why stop at drug use. What about tax avoidance? Assault? Copyright?

I cannot believe that any media outlet is giving airplay to Nick Riewoldt on moral/health issues in sport. Under his leadership and later captaincy, the entire St Kilda playing group was a disgrace to sport for every social-issue reason you could think of - performance enhancing drugs, illicit drugs, sexting and nude photos, sex with probably underage girls, group sex with drugged and drunken girls who might not even have been willing, the list goes on. He was an amazing footballer but has no credibility beyond football.

Nick Riewoldt denies recreational drug use at St Kilda in his time there. He probably also denies their documented dwarf tossing and their issue with school girls. The bloke is full of [censored].

Are multiple players taking drugs in the offseason and long weekends - absolutely. Are some players taking drugs more regularly than that - maybe every weekend in the preseason and the night after the game in season - sure. But you're struggling to play elite AFL footy if you're launching in to big weekends every week and I reckon we've seen that with some of our players if you know where to look. I reckon you can count in one hand the number of truly elite players who could keep that lifestyle going. The majority of AFL players get in long term relationships early, settle down and live a pretty boring life. They are good citizens who do community work, are super professional about their trade and the last few offseasons has shown are really low level of crime and disorderly behaviour. Certainly compared with their NRL colleagues in Northern states. What good comes from punishing AFL players with really harsh illicit drug policies? Do we all feel a little better about ourselves because our heroes are all clean skins? Do we feel morally superior? The current policy has stopped a repeat Ben Cousins. That was its aim and it has been successful. Club culture can take care of the rest. How hard is it for a coach to get with his leadership group and set standards about behaviour and work out which players are going too hard and sort it out? Trade, delist, play in the 2nds. You'll sort it out in no time.