Its Time for Another

We were tracking pretty much the same as them at 3 Feb. since then we've dried up while they've continued to track like I thought we would. Wonder what's going on. Maybe they've had their fan day already.

The first step was switching from cereal for breakfast to a protein shake consisting ofmeitherna banana or some berries such as strawberries and blueberries with some protein powder, coconut water maybe a raw egg and a super foods powder supplement. Delicious and I don't get as hungry mid morning as I used to with cereal. Lunch I either have a salad with some tinned tuna or some type of grilled meat or fish. I have to say cutting carbs out at lunch made the biggest difference. I always suffered a mid afternoon energy lag where I'd almost feel like I needed a sleep. That's gone. Dinner I eat plenty of chicken, red meat at least once a week, usually grilled I the barbie. I used to not eat much red meat. In keeping with PaleomI avoid potatoes, legumes, peas and beans. I was never a big bread eater so it wasn't a big deal to cut it out. I love rice so it was a bit more challenging to cut it out. My theory is if I make it too hard it won't be sustainable for me. So I'm not strict about it. I have some dairy like milk. I still have the occasional beer and wine. The theory of these diets is that sugar is the problem. If you cut it out and the foods that turn into it after digestion out of your diet all the good things follow. Certainly seems to be working for me. The other really interesting theory to it is that if you don't have sugar in your body it turns to fat as a source of energy. We have 10 times more energy reserves from fat than sugar. So much better for endurance for exercise. Also has the benefit that your body eats your fat reserves much more than before while at the same time reducing the fat created by sugar. All I can say is that last summer I smashed most of my PB's on the bike and I'm now in my mid 50's. Some of those times have sat around for more than 10 years. I'm not a competition rider,or anything I just ride for fitness but we go pretty hard for us and I was stocked at the difference. If you are really interested there is a book written by Rob Wolf called The Paleo Solution. It explains the science behind it in great detail. It's been around a lot longer than people think.

I live in Sydney and go to most of their home games. Mills and Heeney are freaks of nature. There are an awful lot of recruits at Sydney that weren't like what your saying when they came in and quite a few that still aren't. Heeney also did his share of fading during games and just like most young players will take time to develop a competitive tank. Sydney have such an established list that young players are given time to develop before they are thrown in the seniors. When they do arrive they are in a team where everyone else is at the competitive level of development so they aren't under nearly as much pressure as our young guys. Plus they get micro coaching on field from all the experienced players around them. I've seen players running on to the field and being told where to stand to the centimetre, when to stay on their man when to run off, picking out which option to kick to etc etc etc. We haven't had that, although it sounds like there is finally a growing on field leadership developing.

I don't think you can underestimate the age profile and capacity to compete physically and particularly running capacity. I went to the 2011 B&F and spoke to Aaron Davey who said Bailey had been trying to get them to execute a game plan they just couldn't execute. He said as a group they just didn't have the ability to run both ways the way he wanted them too. I spoke to Neil Craig at the 2012 pre match function in Sydney and he said they were shocked when they arrived and discovered how poor the fitness levels were. He said then they thought they were 2 1/2 seasons away from being competitive fitness wise. At the Maroochydore camp this year the emphasis changed from still focusing on building fitness to now focusing on game plan. It's taken a very long time for the fitness level to be finally considered adequate to be competitive. Under the Roos era another 32 players have been turned over so the fitness time line has taken a hit as so many players who should have been ripe by now have had to be discarded and replaced with new players who we start from scratch all over again. It looks like this merry go round is finally over,however, when you look through the exciting young talent in the team we are still a few years away from the majority hitting that sweet spot of conditioning. Judging by Jack Viney it looks like at a minimum players have to be in their 3rd season to really start to have a competitive level of conditioning. I suspect it is their 4th year when they are competitive with the best. So we still have a few years to be patient. I think we'll look back on last year's crop as being a vintage year which creates a major nucleus of players in the team but we have at least another 2-3 years before they are all at the required level to mix it with the best. I have a suspicion that because of all of the above there is going to be a greater step forward this year than people think who look at all the other teams and say every team is improving every year so we won't be much more competitive. In the past we might have got to this point of development but still be non competitive because of poor development and poor coaching. But not this time. Looking at WJ's list, I totally agree with how essential it is going to be to have our best players on the park. The conditioned players like Jones Dawes and Lumumba etc need to be around to ease the burden as the younger stars develop their tanks.

Thanks. I basically went on this diet, (calling it Paleo) after I read about Shane Watson and the Cricket Team Dr going on it and raving about it and then reading about the team going on it. I lost about 10kg's and it made a hell of a difference to my stamina on the bike. Don't know if that was because of the diet or not having to push the extra 10kg's up the hills. I thought it was both. A neighbour up the road went on the Paleo diet 3 yrs ago and has been on it every since. He lost 15kg's and has kept it off. Also had bad arthritis in his hands which is gone plus was on high level blood pressure tablets long term and is now off them completely. As I understand it, it is a matter of actual fact that Jack Fitzpatrick's life was changed going on this diet at the Club. It completely transformed his diabetes to the point that he only had to take insulin once a day at the end of the day instead of having to do blood tests constantly throughout the day including during games. He's not a mouse so seems to have worked ok for him. If he was a mouse maybe the Uni study would be accurate. My wife complains about not losing weight while she goes to dieticians and takes weight loss pills etc and sits there looking at me doing paleo and losing 10kg's. But she knocks it and says its bad. Proof is in the pudding. My friend up the road who lost 15kg's has a wife who has done the same thing. Hangs it on him for doing a fad diet and she is way over weight taking all sorts of ridiculous weight loss supplements etc that cost a fortune and then just puts it all back on. The only people knocking the LCHF or Paleo diets seem to be the ones that never try it. I've never heard anyone going on them knocking them.

Excuse my ignorance. What are HFLC and LCHF

No. 3 is underrated and something the really elite midfielders seem to have. Think Judd, Ablett, Selwood. Very hard to tackle and knock off their feet. As others have pointed out this isn't Parish it certainly looks like it is Clarry.

Where did you see that. I haven't heard anything like that. I only read somewhere in December that he was working really hard.

What singing nuts in the changing rooms? Talk about a thread off the rails.

Very interesting article on Realfooty today. AFL season 2016: Paul Roos yet to commit to Demons for 2017 Link http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/afl-season-2016-paul-roos-yet-to-commit-to-demons-for-2017-20160217-gmw6r4.html#ixzz40OpJoLLP Here's a couple of interesting quotes. "Roos and football operations boss Josh Mahoney have been instrumental in a revamp of the football department, player development, game style and playing list, with 32 changes in playing personnel over the past three years through the draft, trade and free agency." "Goodwin, former Crows skipper and Essendon assistant, and Roos share beliefs how the game should be played, including a need to be "brutal" at the contest." "Having assessed their own list and that of rivals, the Demons believe they will have 20 to 23 "good" players this season, up from "13 decent players" in 2013, whom they can rely on each week to perform. Their analysis shows the top-four teams have about 27 whom they can call upon." "The Demons, with seven wins last season, have also narrowed the gap in terms of what they pay their players, to the return they believe the players have given. Internal valuations show there was a 27 per cent discrepancy last season in terms of what could be considered over-payment, but that margin is set to be slashed to 4 per cent this year, meaning, Mahoney said, "we are getting to the stage of paying the players what they are worth".

It must be February.

woops

Where did you see or hear this? Any idea what the something most draftees don't have is? Maybe his looks?

In his case it's not onfield we have to worry about, its off field. So fingers crossed they have been able to do both. His domestic situation is very complicated apparently and a lot of behaviour problems caused by his partner. Hopefully its all sorted now. He seems to be naturally shy and having a year under his belt in the Club will probably set him up even more for this season

Are you being serious? He said he didn't expect to be drafted and went at pick 4. Now he's saying he' s not AFL ready and would be happy with a couple of games. I wouldn't read any more into it than he appears to have a lower opinion of his potential than many others. He looks to me to be a kid who will let his footy do the speaking. He'll probably still be speaking like this when he's accepting his first Brownlow.

Interestingly there was an article about Menzel at Adelaide also not coming back in good enough condition and having to go off into the fitness group as his fitness level isn't good enough for their midfield. Mentioned that Jacobs and Betts were able to advise the fitness people what to expect from a player coming from the Blues. Sounds like us a couple of years ago.

25,253 - 17 Feb 2011 24,195 - 16 Feb 2012 23,650 - 18 Feb 2013 26,641 - 17 Feb 2014 26,639 - 18 Feb 2015 28,759 - 17 Feb 2016 So compared to last year in the period 22 Dec to 17 Feb we are down about 20% on membership growth (3187 v 2542) and 25% in the first couple of weeks of February. No wonder no membership numbers have been posted for a while. Hope this trend doesn't keep going or we will be back to close to last year's total. We need Wins! Wins! Wins!

Dodged a bullet here. "Yarran arrived at Richmond for the pre-season overweight and has injured his calf muscle twice in the pre-season." Link http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-richmonds-chris-yarran-wont-play-in-seniors-in-first-third-of-season-20160216-gmw2sp.html#ixzz40NdaPqJ2 If you turn up overweight you obviously haven't done enough training in the break. If you haven't and then try to keep up with pre season training you are likely to get injured. Double whammy. There was a lot of talk last year about us trying to get him. Phew, not our problem. Lesson here about being careful in recruiting players who have attitude problems at their old Club and thinking you are going to turn them around. Sylvia anyone. You are on notice StKilda.

I'm looking for these two improvements and a bit of injury relief from the footy gods . If we get them the sky's the limit. 1. Improved running and spreading. My observation last year of why we fell apart in games was that our boys stopped running. When we were competitive we were running hard defensively to cut off attacks and running hard offensively to set up attacks. When put under pressure by better teams or late in games the first thing that went was the two way running as they lost confidence, dropped their bundles and went back into their shells. This meant that in our worst games we weren't going to climb out of the hole. Since these rebuilds started it appears our list hasn't had the conditioning to be able to maintain competitive running. A few of the coaches have said the fitness levels are there now which has enabled them to concentrate on executing the game plan this pre season. This is a major step forward. 2. Reduced turnovers. These have been absolute momentum killers over this era. They are also partly caused by a lack of 1 above. I believe turnovers are caused as much by players not knowing what to do as they are by lack of skill. If a player gets a ball looks down the field and there are no clear targets then they are going to be forced to hold on to the ball too long and are forced to send it to questionable options which cause turnovers. Hopefully all the game plan work that has been done over the summer is going to lead to a lot more clear options which will lead to a lot less turnovers. This comes down to being taught where to run to and then actually doing the running. It sounds like this pre season has been based around improving these two factors. If the training has worked I expect to see a significant improvement onfield. I don't have any idea what that will translate to in wins. I call 9 wins a pass, however, my main interest in the number of wins is how many will be needed to convince Hoges to stay and attract someone like Prestia or O'Meara. I think that may be at least 10 but probably 11. If the footy gods finally smile on us and we have close to our best 22 on the field most of the season anything will be possible.

Hmmm, Club hasn't posted the Membership tally since 3 Feb, nearly 2 weeks ago. Wonder if membership purchases have stalled.

This is the logic. At some stage the players sue EFC for compo. EFC's insurance company are actually the one's that will pay out. The insurance company says "So you want us to pay you $34mill because you were found guilty by CAS. We think the CAS decision was wrong. The only way to prove that would have been to appeal. Did you appeal? No! Well then it's your fault you are still found guilty it's our view if you had appealed you would have got off and we wouldn't be here fighting you off. So bad luck we aint paying." Whereas by appealing they make sure the insurance company/EFC cannot argue this." What would you do? Given it's not going to cost you anything. If the players appeal and succeed they won't have a compo case against EFC. If they don't appeal they might do themselves out of any compensation. They've got to be sitting there hoping their appeal is going to fail. Forget about saving reputations. That isn't going to happen even if they win on the technicalities they are arguing. This has the potential to go on for years if the win on appeal. If they lose then it goes no further. If they win, then it potentially goes back to CAS to hear the appeal just on limited legal issues. Whatever that outcome either party can appeal to Swiss Fed Crt then the losing party can appeal again to the appeal court. Potentially another 4 hearings at around 6-8 mth intervals after the 6-8mth interval waiting for this appeal.

Easy enough. Smack someone's head into the ground you're gone.

The AFL have banned sling tackles like the one I understand Viney applied to McDonald. That tackle is designed to cause serious injury. Pinning a players arm so they have absolutely no way to protect themselves as the tackler smashes their head into the ground. I don't believe it ever had a place in AFL football and now it officially doesn't. Why on earth you would want to apply that tackle to a team mate at training is beyond me. It doesn't show toughness it just shows absolute stupidity. He's bloody lucky he didn't seriously injure T Mc for the start of the season.

You comparing their QB overcoming a mid season foot injury to return and win it to our JT? I like it. But he will have to plug his favourite beer when he stands on the Premiership Podium. They say that Manning doing that three times was worth $24mill in advertising to Budweiser. And it's such a truly crap beer. You'll see I tried hard to keep this relevant to JT's progress.

OK I'm prepared to admit that when Cameron Schwab took the team to China to do an exhibition match I didn't think it was going to do anything but cost money. But now we have a second significant Chinese sponsorship partner. Was it because the door was opened by that trip? Who knows? Perhaps credit where credit is due. I have read that that trip introduced Liam Jurrah to alcohol with the disastrous consequences to that young man's life we have seen. Also read that Scully packed up and went home because of the unacceptable behaviour in the group on that trip. Is that true? Who knows? It's a funny world grass hopper. We know how the worm turned on Mr Scully's exit and delivered us the prodigal son. For that perhaps we can also thank the China trip. The trip that just keeps giving.....or not.