mo64

Not from a perfectly weighted 25m pass that hit the players' hands as if they were a brick wall, and bounced straight out. And there weren't too many obvious fumbles because the ball shouldn't be hitting the deck in a ball movement drill. I was going to post that I was disappointed with some of the 2 grab marks of Dawes when on the lead, but I'd be portrayed as an out and out pessimist. BB, you mentioned in your Friday training report that Gawn was the best ruckman during the match prac because of his work around the ground. If that's the case then Spencer should never get a game, because Jamar is infinitely better than Spencer around the ground.

It;s not an opinion. I heard Allison clearly say to the players involved that the objective was to hit the target with the receiving player moving forward. Terlich's kicks reached their target every time, but that wasn't the objective. Saty, if you were anywhere near where it happened, you would have seen Terlich give himself a fist pump after getting it right at the 4th attempt. And you clearly didn't see Spencer drop a sitter in the middle of the ground and fumble during one of the ball movement drills. For mine, it stands out like dog;'s balls, because it shouldn't happen at local level footy let alone AFL.

Without wanting to derail the thread, I don't rate N. Jones in the top 10 mids in the comp, so I don't throw the term "champion" as freely as some.

Actually I did mention that Tyson is our only true class mid.

What wasn't?

Just got back from training. No good news unfortunately. Firstly, Sam Frost grabbed for his hammy and went straight off. Had some treatment on the sidelines and left. Mentioned Petracca's injury in the other thread. I also noticed that Garlett was feeling for his hammy during a drill, and whilst he completed the whole seesion, he hardly got involved. As far as the rehab players go, Watts did some of the early drills and looked in no discomfort. Fitzpatrick spent the whole time on the sidelines. Howe did some light running. Didn't see Vince, JKH, Stretch, Garland, Jamar, White or Hunt at the ground. Training appeared to be a light session, mainly focussing on ball movement, and personalised drills. Very little contested work, so the players that stand out tend to be the more skilled. Salem stood out for his clean hands and kicking, whilst Toumpas stood out for his gut running and kicking on the run. Hogan was once again a beast, but T Mac did really well against him in one on one contests. Those that didin't impress were Spencer (dropped another sitter and fumbled the follow up) and Terlich. During one of the personalised drills involving 6 players conducted by Allison, the player would receive the ball with back to goal, turn around and weight a pass to a designated player. The designated player would run to goal and duck back so he's looking at the kicker, and the pass had to be weighted in front of him. Salem was spot on each time and Petracca had one miskick that he was filthy about. After 3 miskicks, Terlich finally nailed one, and proceeded to give himself a fist pump with a smile on his face. It made me cringe. During one of the latter ball movement drills, Spencer and Toumpas were grappling with each other behind play. Initially I thought they were mucking around, but it happened again 5 minutes later at the end of the drill. Hogan ran in to defend Toumpas, and I thought he was going to snot Spencer. It broke up straight away. In a funnier moment, there was a drill that involved one on one marking contests, with a kick weighted to a designated player. N. Jones was up against Hogan, and Hogan beat him every time, regardless of who was favoured by the kick. I heard Jones yell out an expletive, whilst Hogan was laughing. Mark Stevens came up to me in regards to the Petracca injury. I asked him if he'd been to many of our training sessions, and he said he had, and thought that we'd been impressive. I mentioned my concerns about our midfield, and he agreed that we didn't have any champions there.

Just got home from training and can confirm the injury. Petracca knee buckled on landing from a marking contest. Was down for quite a few minutes in obvious pain. Some players came up to him with a consoling pat. He managed to limp to the boundary line where he was attended to. Did some short walks along the boundary with a limp, then proceeded to AAMI Park with a trainer/doctor with a more noticeable limp. Petracca's knee and thigh were bandaged when I arrived at training, and he was on the sidelines. I was surprised when he got involved in all the training drills. If you see a report from Mark Stevens regarding Petracca's injury, the diagnosis came from yours truly. He arrived with a cameraman just as Petracca was being attended to. He came up to me to ask what happened. We both agreed that it's too early to tell.

TDI, was that you with the texta in hand? If so, I was the one on the bike 5 metres away.

Baill got a fair bit of the ball, and JKH was ok without doing alot.Toumpas' technique doesn't cause direct turnovers, but how a player weights his kicks can be the difference between your teammate having an 80% advantage in a marking contest or a 55% advantage. An incident that occured on the HFF, where Toumpas stopped, surveyed the field, and kicked the ball leaning back which resulted in the ball lobbing high into the forward pocket. It gave the forward no chance.

I agree with that, and wouldn't mind having Toumpas with ball in hand running down the wing. But the modern game is about contested footy, so if you're an outside mid, you need some tricks. When you look at Smith and Hill, they both have pace and evasive skills that Toumpas lacks. But I can still see Toumpas being in our best 22 as a link up player.

It was only a 14 a side game, so the pressure wasn't intense, and it was easy to find space. What Toumpas does is not dissimilar to Sam Mitchell, the difference being that Mitchell is brilliant with his hands, and punches his kicks to get penetration, whereas Toumpas kicks leaning back which gives them more elevation and less penetration.

I was one of very few bystanders on the AAMI Park side of the ground, and the incidents in question were in front of me. Given that we're coming from a low base, I tend to look at where the areas of improvement will come. It concerns me if players are making the same mistakes at a low intensity training run. There were very few "well done" moments. Tyson, Hogan, Garlett, Newton, Frost and Dunn provided some. Matt Jones got plenty of the ball, which is expected given that it was only 14 players per side, and he was an outside mid.

Attended my first training session for the year. There were very few bystanders so I thought I'd give my observations. I must have been on the other side of the ground to Baghdad Bob, cause I hardly noticed Petracca but noticed others not mentioned. The match simulation involved 1 player with a white vest who played for both teams. Those players were Tyson, Viney and N.Jones alternatively. Tyson copped a spray from Roos for not giving off a handball which resulted in a turnover. Standouts - Despite his earlier error, Tyson is our classiest player and makes the game look easy. - N. Jones just kept getting the ball. - Newton was the player that surprised me the most. Great awareness and decision making, and a lovely left foot kick. - Hogan clunked a fantastic contested mark and roamed as far as the centre. His kicking for goal doesn't seem to be a concern either. - Garlett didn't do a lot, but will be great around Hogan. - The backline players in Jetta, Dunn, Salem and Frost were impressive. I didn't have huge wraps on Frost, but his defensive skills were great. Salem also copped a spray from Roos for playing on and kicking to a contest, but his disposal is 1st class which is sadly lacking in our backline. Brayshaw got a fair bit of the ball at half back. Disappointments - Viney was in the play alot, and was in his element when tackling was involved. However he missed targets too often and at one stage smashed his fist into the ground after having a handball blocked by Frost, resulting in a goal at the other end. - Collectively Spencer, Pedersen, McKenzie and M.Jones made the same mistakes they've been making their whole careers. Spencer and [Pedersen] dropping marks under little pressure. McKenzie going to ground unnecessarily to give off a handball resulting in a turnover.(Keep your bl##dy feet). M. Jones almost missed the lot when having a set shot 30m out straight in front. Toumpas got plenty of the ball, but every time he did, he'll stop to survey what's ahead of him, and kick the ball leaning back. This results in the ball taking longer to get to a teammate. Good players know what they're going to do with the ball before they get it. It's something that Toumpas needs to work on. Overall I thought the standard was pretty average in what seemed to be a low intensity match simulation. The conditions were fairly windy, but there were too many missed targets. On a positive note, the addition of Hogan, Garlett, Newton and Lumumba will hopefully improve our side. Contrary to BB, I thought that Jamar was clearly the dominant big man. Vince ran a lot of laps at a fairly decent pace, but I noticed a limp when he was walking. Howe also ran laps but seemed to be moving ok when kicking for goal.

Ash, I don't recall Melbourne winning that day or it being close, so I'm guessing it's 1975. Also, I'm pretty sure World Of Sports were showing match highlights in normal vision by 1977. Hope that helps.

After a lengthy hiatus from Demonland, I felt the need to contribute to this post as it was also the greatest goal I've ever seen. I actually raised this exact goal on another forum.It was incredible. It was along the members' wing and Robbie also baulked past a few Bombers' players, then kicked it from around 45m to the Napier St. end. Having grown up not far from Windy Hill, it's fair to say that the Bombers' members weren't known for their salutations for opposition players. But even they applauded en masse. I can also recall the goal being shown on WOS. It was almost in sepia with fake audio. As an aside, Robbie also took the best mark I've seen live. It was against Fitzroy at G, and there is footage of it in a highlights package of Robbie. But the footage doesn't do it justice. Robbie ran with the flight of the ball, then twisted and jumped onto the shoulder of the Fitzroy player, and plucked a one-hander. For degree of difficulty, it was better than Jeff Farmer's mark against Richmond in '98.

Thanks for the useless information. I'm staggered to find out that higher draft picks have played more games than lower draft picks. Who would have guessed? The point that Rojik and IWS have been making is that an additional high draft pick will not make one iota of difference to a team that has a losing culture. Instilling the current team with some confidence will achieve better results in the future, rather than pinning your hopes on 1 draft pick.

Correct, and neither Hawthorn or WCE finished bottom in the year that they acquired Hodge and Banfield respectively.

Ok smarta#se. How many no.1 picks have played in a premiership side?

So if we're not good enough to win a game against a team that's playing as poorly as WCE, what difference will 1 additional high draft pick make? And I'm not surprised that you love a guy without a clue, because it's obvious to everyone on this site that you love yourself!!!!

My definition of an elite midfielder is someone who makes the players around him better. The last elite midfielder to enter the AFL was Joel Selwood, and he didn't seem to have any problems commanding a place in a strong Geelong midfield. I was critical of Morton's decision making last year, but being a bottom aged draftee, I was prepared to cut him some slack. This season, I'm struggling to see any improvement in that area, and now he seems to be struggling in contested situations. I'm not expecting him to be a consistantly dominant player from day 1, like Judd and Selwood, but I wouldn't mind seeing glimpses of it.

You can't blame the media. The club has paraded him in our 2 biggest games (media wise) of the season, and if he played 2 blinders, the club would have lapped up the media attention. And the kid seems to handle the media exposure pretty well. I'm unconcerned about Watts' 2 games to date. I'm more concerend about Hannabal's 2008 lovechild, Cale Morton. I'm struggling to see any signs of him being an elite midfielder. In his 25 odd games, I've yet to see him have any influence on a game, other than racking up possessions.

Every club probably thinks that they have a great plan going forward. Do you think that CC didn't believe that he had a great plan at Freo? DB can smirk all he likes at press conferences. The fact that he read the riot act to the players after the Collingwood game suggests that he's not happy with what we're producing. Results will determine whether he can coach, not body language at press conferences.

I agree with all of that. A coach can implement a basic football philosophy that's appropriate to whatever gameplan or player type on his list. I'm purely talking about a gameplan, which means ball movement and player structure (both offensive and defensive). IMO, a coach should implement a gameplan that's appropriate to his list, without compromising on basic football philosophies. As his player list changes, so does his gameplan.

Ok, for all you football knowalls, do you realise that some clubs don't maintain the same gameplan for a whole season? In response to a discussion of our own forward spy Sneaky Dave Dunbar, Robert Shaw revealed that forward spies have become more prevalent in football because clubs can change their gameplan every 8 weeks. Get that, every 8 weeks. And that's understandable given that clubs have already started to dismantle Hawthorn's rolling zone. So you nuffies who believe that we should build a list based on a gameplan that will become redundant in 12 months, are clueless.

Don't worry about it Roost It. I'd be offended if it came from a poster I respect. We all know that Rhino is just a keyboard bully who's trying to let out his frustrations after years of childhood taunts.