Caligula's Cohort!

James Stewart is ripe for the taking with their salary cap space and is also out of contract at seasons end. At 196 cms and 93 kgs could be a very good get and still only 22. My other smokey would be Tim Mohr who has been dogged by injuries but I reckon he would be a good FB for us at 198cms and 105 kgs and still relatively young at 27.

I just hope Melbourne can give Essendrug a 148 point belting like they did too us in 2013!

Yes I would of loved to do a few more but my country calls... I managed to get to a few games toward the end of the year after finishing basic training. I'm on my way up to Townsville where i'm based and have been lucky enough to see a bit of the Demons train this preseason.

Incitatus, my friend. He was a king among horses.

Brayshaw is looking the goods. He reminds me of a young Pendelbury, he's going to be a star for us. He's trimmed down quite a fair bit, I'd say he's lost about 3 or 4kgs but I love he's banter around the group. When the mids were working on their drills during Mathews skills session he kept on picking the same mids for the clearance work and Mccartney yelled out to Mathews "aren't you going to change it up?" and Brayshaw replied "he's got favourites, he's got favourites!" referencing Jones, Tyson and Viney. But yea, I watched him go 1 on 1 with Bugg for a while and he was just going all out against him trying to win the ball and stop Bugg from getting the ball. It was really good to watch.

Spencer is doing all the right things. I reckon he just needs to get some consistency and belief in himself to lockdown a role rotating between the forward line and the ruck. Also a worthy mention goes to Watts he's really been training the house down and showing real voice and leadership. The forward line is gelling really well with Pederson, Dawes and Watts as the talls and Kent, Kennedy and Garlett as the smalls. They are showing good contested work and evasive skills to beat their opponents.

It's been a while since I've done a training report so I'm trying to make up for it with this fairly lengthy piece. I hope you enjoy. I managed to get down to training with a mate of mine who’s an Essendon supporter, but I’m trying to convince him to join the Mighty Dees. Funnily enough he did work experience with Melbourne back in 2005. Anyway onto training, It’s a muggy 27 degrees up here in Maroochydore (weather has been very average since arriving on Saturday). We got to training around 10.30am and walked to the back oval to find a few of the rehabbers in Trenners, Vince, Weideman and Mitch King having a kick around with Crossy. Trenners is moving really well and can see him joining the main group soon. On the main oval we had some more rehab guys in Dawes, Oliver, Frost, Jetta, and Smith doing some contested marking drills on the boundary. Dawes still can’t clunk a mark, but I was impressed with the way he was teaching Oliver how to use the body when contesting from front and back positions and creating space to allow the ball to drop at his feet. On the main oval now it’s a half ground simulation (blue vs green) and the guys in green are working really hard to get the ball out of defence using the boundary while the boys in blue are using short and sharp kicks, giving the defending team no time to close down on their opponents. The boys were being vocal but the coaches still wanted to see more aggression. Something that really impressed me was Hunt’s pace. He burst away from a stoppage play with Chunk nipping at his heels until space opened up and he eventually gained 10 metres on him and kicked long down the line. All the boys and even the coaches had a chuckle, looking around at each other as if to say (did you just see that?) After that the boys split up into groups, mids on mids and forwards on defenders. We watched the mids go at it for a while with Ben Mathews running the stoppage drills and McCartney keeping a watchful eye on the group in the distance, while Roos was standing on and electric platform lift getting a birds eye view with the filming crew. We overheard McCartney at one stage telling Whitey that he “wants to see good habits, and to keep a tighter check on his opponent”. Apart from that the midfield group were going reasonably well, but the coaches still wanted to see the players be more vocal and aggressive. At the clearance the guys were also getting way to close to the ruckman during the tap outs and weren't watching where the ball dropped causing fumbles or multiple turnovers. Mathews quickly clamped down on that and told them to “follow the flight of the ball instead of the position of the ruckmen and to give more space at the clearance”. Around 11.30am the boys all participated in the same drill (except for the rehab group) splitting into 4 groups using the whole ground. During this exercise the players would contest each other 1 on 1 trying to stop each other winning the ball and using their body to block their opponent from marking the ball coming towards them. They would continue this at full intensity and then break out into a full on wrestle and just when you thought they were spent, they had to sprint half the field to the next location. It looked exhausting just watching them. I don’t know how much of the session we missed but overall I’d give it a solid 7/10 in intensity. Players missing were Hogan, Melksham, Petracca, Newton and Max King. I think Hulett was having an off legs day (swim) like Hogan because we didn’t see him train at all. ANB spent most of his time between the exercise bike and the ice bins. Stretch had taping on his calf, Nev had his shoulder heavily strapped, Tyson had no tape on his knee which was good to see. I believe Watts was having trouble with his groin and was stretching out a lot, while Vanders hurt his foot and required icing. Players we were impressed with today were Kent, Frost, T-Mac, Bugg, Brayshaw, Tyson, Michie and Hunt.