Its Time Again

Agree. Swans didn’t steal him from GWS’s nose though.He approached Swans a year before he left Hawks. He wanted to go live with his girlfriend now wife there and get away from the Melbourne fishbowl. He was never going ti GWS.

Yeh. So true. Of course we'd take the Boyd outcome. But Swans had already snared a couple and were very concerned about GWS impact in Sydney.

OD beg to differ on Buddy's value to Swans. Membership after the 2012 flag was 35,000. Membership two years after he came to Swans was 56,000. They had to get a marquee player to protect their position for sponsorships and memberships in the Sydney market against GWS. The Swans stated a year in that he paid his entire 9 year salary within a year of going there with increased memberships and merchandise, not to mention being given much greater TV and media coverage. I used to go to the pre season intra club games to study them close up to pick up any tips for junior coaching. They used to get about 200 of us and virtually no media. The first year Buddy came there were over 2000 people, every TV channel had crews there and there were even helicopters overhead. They don't need to win a Premiership to justify that deal. They loaded his contract in the middle years so he's on $750k for the last 3 years. A lot less than a lot of other marquee players. He will continue to pull crowds till the end. As long as he gets on the park of course.

Thanks DeeSpencer, I meant to include you in that list of training watches. Great informed reply. Much appreciated.

Have a question I want to ask about Jackson and hunted out this thread and had a first look. What a cracker. Question for track watchers particularly those like Saty and BB who have watched a lot of the sessions. A lot of the talk is that when Jackson starts playing it will most likely be in the forward line. Most of the training I saw him doing for the one session I saw was with the rucks so it looked like that's mainly where he's being taught to play. Have you seen him doing much training with the forwards if that's where people think he's going to start playing?

All hail Liam. Very nice work. Great to see.

Love your work. Ground report please.

Always appreciate the detail you provide in your reports BB. It's not till you attend a session that you realise it isn't straight forward to observe as much as you do. I must admit a rye smile coming down from Sydney when you mentioned smoke. Crocodile Dundee comes to mind. Smoke. You call this smoke. I'll show you smoke. I was sitting there breathing in the clean air. Don't know what you're talking about. I must say Trac looks super cut. He could be anything. He's such a special package. Hope this is his break out year into deGoey territory. He's capable of it.

That's what he was doing when I saw him. I couldn't tell you in those sims which of those or whether it was both. I didn't see him deep forward. But O Mac was playing deep forward in some of the drills. But then again so did Lever a few times. But this was also in drills where some players were doing leads as decoys.

I just read through some of my posts to respond and saw all the typos I couldn't see on my phone. For some reason the Edit option isn't available on most of them. Sorry about that. I had a great chat to Nev after training. It's amazing to think of how he and quite a few of the indigenous players are when they first come to the Club or into the AFL system and what a ripping self confident man he has become. Very friendly. He actually came up to me. I asked him if there was much of a change under the new regime. He said the main thing now is that they are on to full match sim and game plan work way earlier than he has experienced before. Said probably because so many have come back after the break in such good shape and there are so many of them fit. I asked him if there was more emphasis on working on i50's. He shrugged his shoulders and said having all the targets down there like Weid and T Mac meant there were targets to kick to this year compared to in the past. I asked about his nephew. He said he's settling in well. We exchanged old ankle injury stories. I didn't realise his was so bad in 2012. I never really recovered from mine done playing footy. He has no problem with his. Said he was surrounded with great medicos physios etc.

From what I saw he was doing more of the delivery to targets i50. He looks to be focusing a lot more on picking targets and doing good specific passes. We tend to notice the bad ones of which there were a couple but there were a lot of very good passes from him. He seems to be fitting in well. He's got good speed and did some really good passes that I saw. Didn't see any obvious bad kicking that he has a reputation for.

Stafford took Bradke out to do some sprints and then ground ball drills and tackling. He was absolutely stuffed. Looked like he nearly passed out. He had to grab onto Staff at one point to stay standing. He’s doing solo run through again now.

Interesting Burgo agility drill going on. Players have to do 3 somersaults along the ground then jump straight up and lay a tackle on a player waiting there. I guess it’s brain training as much as physical.

On what I saw I don’t think you’re right about Gus. Saying Bennell has had no setbacks is the ultimate I want to hear at the moment and completing the plan. IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 12 (Bradtke)

From what I saw I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about Tomlinson and Jones. Both trained really well. Spargo trained well but is still dealing with some stuff on his foot/ankle. Bennell from what I was told is going well without any setbacks. I’ve just seen him and it’s near the end of the sessions so he seems to be engaged smiling and chatting to the rehab guys. No KK no May. Haven’t been able to find anything out about them. Gus appears to be a bit of a worry. He came off and spoke to someone and was shaking his head. I didn’t see him leave but he’s not out there since then. Toby Bedford tweaked something earlier and is coming off now limping near the end of the session. I suppose this is a bit of self evident comment but compared to this time last year Lever is well and truly up and about. Doing full training, strong body language, no hint of knee awareness. IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 11 (Burgo Drill) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 12 (Bradtke)

Doing i50 delivery drills. In some they’re starting to kick laterally around the 50 arc if there’s not a clear target and only kicking in when there is. Worked really well the couple of times they did this. Must say this work is what I was most hoping to see. It was a mixed bag but great to see. IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 10 (Rehab) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 11 (Burgo Drill) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 12 (Bradtke)

Didn’t do anything with the rehab group. Just walking around. I suspect he’d done his work indoors and had come out to watch the rest of the training. No May. IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 09 (Drills) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 10 (Rehab) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 11 (Burgo Drill) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 12 (Bradtke)

Match sim. Welcome to AFL footy Luke Jackson v Maxy. Maxy wins hit out Luke follows up lays tackle gets ball hand balls the clearance. He’s running everywhere Max just following at a light jog till the next contest which he wins easily pushing Luke out. Borderline in the back. Maxy really is a freak of nature how he looks so coordinated for such a tall player. I remember seeing him play his first game and thinking they’d got his height wrong. Jacko just came over the top of Maxy in a contest but didn’t hold the ball. Another contest Jackson great pick up and clean clearing hand pass to player running past. T Mac looks really up and about. Moving very well. Don’t know if this sim is more about defence than attack but i50 connection is struggling. IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 08 (Bennell & May) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 09 (Drills) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 10 (Rehab) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 11 (Burgo Drill) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 12 (Bradtke)

A hand balling game was going in for a while where they are in teams. I got taught a drill like this by the Swans when I was coaching junior footy in Sydney. It can actually run more about setting up defence than the attackers. They train to coral players into a position where they only have one place to handball to so your opponent at the next contest can anticipate where to go to block their opponent down the field. It’s a good one. IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 07 (Match SIM) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 08 (Bennell & May) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 09 (Drills) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 10 (Rehab) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 11 (Burgo Drill) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 12 (Bradtke)

Bennell just arrived.

Kossie is much more built than I expected. I’ve seen players with less of a physique playing ing senior footy. He looks bigger than Spargo. Rivers a good size too. Funny seeing the players up close. A lot are a lo taller than you think. Harmesy for instance. You think of him as a short midfielder but he’s 186cm which I’m the general community is tall. They are all so lean they don’t look huge like the good old days. Rucks are practicing fine hand tapping with left hands then right. Brayshaw appears to be managed still. He did some rum through a on his own then as a target for the ruck taps while everyone else is doing a half field sim. Draftees: Jacko doing tap training with rucks. Kossie and Rivers doing some hand balling ground ball contests with 3 unknown train with players who they are explaining the drills to aim must only be here for a short visit. IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 06 (Drills) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 07 (Match SIM) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 08 (Bennell & May) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 09 (Drills) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 10 (Rehab) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 11 (Burgo Drill) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 12 (Bradtke)

Interesting the rehab era are doing 100mtr run through a and there’s a movement guy giving some of them some comments about their running technique. IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 05 (Rookies & Rucks) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 06 (Drills) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 07 (Match SIM) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 08 (Bennell & May) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 09 (Drills) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 10 (Rehab) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 11 (Burgo Drill) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 12 (Bradtke)

It’s really interesting seeing one aspect of Burgo’s influence. He talks a lot about burst speed and agility being points of difference with soccer. You can see a lot of exercises geared to this. For instance a warm up in front of me. A line of 20 plus players running just a very short 10 metre. Jest off the mark and holding yo their hands in front of them chest night then holding them above their heads and yelling something out when they hit the line and everyone looking at each other to see if they were first. Lots of laughing and talking. Great vibe. Dave said oday is the first day back into full training. IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 04 (Rehab Drills) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 05 (Rookies & Rucks) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 06 (Drills) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 07 (Match SIM) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 08 (Bennell & May) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 09 (Drills) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 10 (Rehab) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 11 (Burgo Drill) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 12 (Bradtke)

Getting a sympathy vote. It also freaking them out a bit. Hopefully because of the crutches and not my personality. Dave Head of Sports Science is taking rehab with Crossy. All very positive (of course). Said there’s been no major setbacks. Bennell is doing well, everything is going to plan. No setbacks. Chatted to Jonesy he was upbeat. Didn’t get anything out of him about progress. Just said All good. Spargo is 3-4 weeks away but said he’s in good shape and loving it. Everyone is very positive about a rebound. Hmmmm no May out there. Harry Petty is twice the size he was this time last year. IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 03 (Burgo) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 04 (Rehab Drills) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 05 (Rookies & Rucks) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 06 (Drills) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 07 (Match SIM) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 08 (Bennell & May) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 09 (Drills) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 10 (Rehab) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 11 (Burgo Drill) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 12 (Bradtke)

I’m here for my annual pre season visit. I can report that reports of everyone turning up an hour early are greatly exaggerated. There’s me hoping around on crutches 2 assistants putting out cones and some birdies flying around. Tony Grieg gound report. My key disappeared into the ground easily. There’s also a lot of water on the outside of the ground suggesting a good watering. Grass is maintained beautifully cut like grass. Players now appearing in the distance. As I write. I’m starting over with rehabbers. Will see if I can get some info. IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 02 (Rehab Chat) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 03 (Burgo) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 04 (Rehab Drills) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 05 (Rookies & Rucks) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 06 (Drills) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 07 (Match SIM) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 08 (Bennell & May) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 09 (Drills) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 10 (Rehab) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 11 (Burgo Drill) | IT'S TIME TRAINING REPORT POST 12 (Bradtke)