Wiseblood

The quintessential training report. I hope you found the Louis Vuitton store up there mate, that satchel is a big loss.

Not a bad prediction to stand by, Biff.

That's a big call from a bloke who felt Mark Neeld would make a good senior coach.

To be fair, it was based on other sports to begin with.

I'm not arguing that in the slightest... I was more commenting on the fact that he isn't 97kgs now.

You sound like a Melbourne fan at the end of 2011. Your team is wildly inconsistent, has a dodgy keeper and can't keep the goals out. You'll need to do a hell of a lot more than sign a few defenders to 'win the league'. And even if the FA Cup means little, what the game did show is that some of your youngsters are nowhere near it. That's got to be a cause for concern, FA Cup or not.

Still think so, AF? Not his finest moment overnight.

He has the capability, but the Premier League is vastly different to the Bundesliga. Plus you need some serious quality in your side to get there. Funnily enough, Klopp has won the same number of games to this point as LVG had at United. He'll need to improve quite a bit to achieve a title in the next few years.

If Oscar is now 97kgs, then Jayden Hunt is easily 110kgs.

Why are we splitting hairs about Daniel Cross? He was sensational for us, but clearly we made the right decision. It's not as if we went backwards when he retired. Strange discussion to have.

And let's hope it stays that way.

Daniel? He might be good for a few goals this year.

Gawn was in the leadership group last season and I'd be extremely surprised not to see him in it for 2017 after the year he just had.

Any reason why you think he is over rated?

No I don't think you are, which is why your post seemed strange to me. I do believe that Spencil has pretty much reached the height of his abilities and improvement. Nothing more than an opinion and, again, I'm happy for him to prove me wrong. In fact, I'd love him to. But I just don't see that happening.

Both good posts and cheers for the well rounded discussion. I don't have much more to add to my opening point, other than wanting to re-iterate that while I'm very skeptical about pre-season form and everything that goes with that (unrealistic expectations are one), I'll happily put my hands up and admit I'm wrong if he is able to win a regular spot in our best 22 or, god forbid, come in for an injury and play exceptionally well. I hope every bloke that pulls on our jumper will do that, but the reality is never exactly that, and for me, Spencer won't be anything more than what he currently is. Cheers.

Okay. No idea what the point of that is, as I've already said I'm happy to be proven wrong, but if you want to be the 'I told you so' type then fill your boots, McQueen.

I'm not asking them to be, and it's beside the point. My point is that, to me, it's dangerous to get excited about supposed 'improvement' from players who have been on our list for a long time. I know what I'm getting with Spencer, and he can be a decent back up for Max. I'm not asking him to be Max. I'll reserve any excitement until I see him do it on gameday against proper opposition and not in January during drills with his team mates. That's just my opinion though.

Yes, he did. In the beginning of the year he played quite well, which I happily agreed to at the time. But he still made the same mistakes he always did - I can recall him making some absolute shockers throughout his time in the side. Injury didn't help, but the club obviously felt he couldn't add more to the side, nor could they develop him further. So he got delisted. My point is that people got all excited about him because people talked him up at training and made big statements about his future. That just shouldn't be done at this time of the year - 99% of the players on each list in the AFL will be 'training the house down'. But there are some players that have been around long enough for us to make a fair assumption on, and M. Jones was one of those.

Is he? I'd like to see you prove it. My point is that he is obviously doing good things at training, but, that is no indication of how that improvement translates to game day. We've seen what Spencer has to offer - he's a back up to Gawn who is decent in the ruck, okay up forward in short bursts but doesn't offer much around the ground. Players can only develop so far and have a ceiling that they'll never get past. Spencer is on the list as he is a cheap back up while we have little else. We're in big trouble if Gawn goes down. I'll once again re-iterate that I'm all for players proving me wrong. I don't wish them ill, nor do I wish that they don't make it. I just comment and have an opinion on what I see.

Firstly, great response Ron. But I'm still on the opposite side of the discussion. I've highlighted this small aspect of your post as I believe this is the reason why Lewis won't be a co-captain of the club. He shouldn't need it to be empowered - he said when he arrived at the club that our list excited him the most, and that's all the empowering he should need. He can still lead, support, encourage etc without the title, and to jump over the top of others may be unsettling. Let him do lots of good for the club as just Jordan Lewis; he doesn't need a title to go with that. We'll get invaluable leadership and experience from him anyway.

Very well said, VP. The things we can take away from training that are worthwhile are ideas around the game plan and where they are trialing certain players in new positions, such as someone making the step up from a flank to a midfield role. How they are going at training is of no real interest - as long as they are all putting in 100%, which they would be. Take Jake Spencer for example - it sounds like he is training the house down and looking good in the match sims. I can't get excited about that. I still see the same big, lumbering bloke who is an average kick and offers little around the ground. With any player I'm more than happy to be proven wrong, but I'm not a fan of making statements of break out years and so forth based on their efforts at training. It means very little. Matt Jones was supposedly best 22 during training last year and ended up being delisted. That's just another example of reading too much into training. He looked great in January, yet ended up being the same player in June. It's great to hear about the game plan, how we are looking to move the ball quickly and where certain players are spending their time during these drills. The rest is not as important.

Bizarre post, Ron. Lewis a Co-captain? No chance.

VP - does it look like the club were trialling players in different positions, or was it business as usual with players in their usual roles?

The co-captaincy stuff is a bit silly if people are suggesting that, but the 'on field general' part is something he can do from the periphery. Doing this alongside guys like Viney, Tyson etc. will be terrific and won't take too much from his end. I agree that it's a lot to ask of any recruit - you wouldn't ask it of Hibberd, for example - but I think it will just come naturally to Lewis. We won't have to ask him to do it, he will take it upon himself to do it.