drdrake

No one deserves the named captian. Our leadership group last year that included Moloney was disgraceful. I agree with a previuos post leave it with Green and throw the challenge out there for someone to step up. To me we have Green next year and 3 contenders for 2013 Moloney-he needs to play well in the games we are losing, if you look at least year Moloney beat up on weaker midfields but went missing agasinst better midfields. Trengove-Just keep improving start to dominate in a few games Grimes-Get your body right and play 20-22 games

I have been lucky to attend a few training sessions and you always look for one player that is unexpectively training the house down. To me we have two this year in Bate and Bennell. Bennell in particular has looked good when the footy has come out and hopefully his efforts will see him lock away a small defender role.

What has happened to Adam Maric?

It's amazing the differing opinions and perspectives. I thought today was the hardest session they have had, the running was huge, I don't know what people consider 200m but they ran a lot more than that. It three of sets 2 x 400m, 2 x 300m, 2 x 200m with 1-2 min rest between each one, it was hard work and even our better runners struggled with this. It was solid and the last set the players were spent. I was impressed by the improvement in Blease and Gysbert a long way to go but the worked well in the first 2 sets. The highlight to me was the main group is growing, today was the largest amount of players in this group. Our club to me look to be getting a few things right, I am impressed by the programs certain players have that aren't working with the main group and how the injured players all have someone taking care of them. Jurrah has a rabbit that paces him and for the first time, today Jurrah looked comfortable with his work often beating his rabbit. The drills are the same as past seasons, lots of running zone set ups. Good to see Davey complete the session, he struggled through the running, today saw him and Blease fill that small forward role. Martin will play forward and be the second ruckman, through the drills it looks like we wil have three tall forwards a small the a couple of mid size. Still amazed that AFL players can't him a target over 15m and kick on there opposite foot, the only player that did was Jack Watts, every other player tried to kick accross their body. We have some tall boys on our list and some are starting to get a bit of size about the.

The way I thought the rule worked was if you turned 30 in the year off the next season, so if they turn 30 in 2013 before September they can go onto the VL.

You might also find Davey and I think Jamar will qualify for Veterens List.

Ht I can tell you from experience you will lose a little speed if you focus on increasing your endurance, it won't be noticable because as mentioned he will be able to maintain his top speed for longer periods of time. Our recently departed No1 pick is not quick but what he can do because of his endurance is run at his top speed longer than most which will make him look quick similar to Chris Judd.

Good post, it is the old fast twitch slow twitch agrument, Blease and Jurrah will never have the endurance of a Jones or Bail. By working them to increase endurance wil they lose some speed, yes but what it will enable them to do is maintain their top speed for a longer periods of time. You wouldn't notice of the mark, accelartion but if you put it over 20-30m it would be minimual 0.1-0.2 of a second. With the way the game is played burst players are becoming a liability you need players that have the endurance to run both ways and that is something both Blease and Jurrah need to work on. Great to burst out on the attack but you have to be able to chase and work hard back to create the defensise pressure. The one that is more concerning is Gysberts doesn't have speed and doesn't have a tank, he needs to be running like Jones and Bail and hopefully over the next year we can see this.

You need to think big, our coaching staff would be the biggest in the AFL, most of them look like they can still play and would be 192cms +

It's not about Viney getting past a first rounder it is about a club with a pick below us bidding this pick for Viney, if we finish 12th this year if the clubs below us don't think Viney is worth a top 6 pick it will cost us our second round pick. We have committed to Viney unless we finish in the bottom 4 I doubt any club will let us get away with not using our first round pick.

They guys usualy have 2-3 seasons per day, the stuff we see is only a small percentage of what they do.

If we turn back the clock 12 months Bailey and the club were pushing Liam Jurrah to the media and members to continue building the Hype around our club. The isuue we faced through the season Liam was pitted against the best defenders in the competition with little support or protection. By mid year he looked done flat, maybe the management of Liam could have been handled better with a few more rests through out the year. On his fitness, we have to manage him. I have no issues with him working on a dedicated training program designed for Liam. We all know his ability and the last thing we want to do is push him to hard if his body isn't ready for it. As long as he is ready to join the main group by January he will be Ok and considering he will go into 2012 as our third or fourth forward and not our primary focal point get ready for an exciting year.

He wasn't on his own in the bad kicking stakes, a little nerves he will get better.

Training went well, just cut and paste Friday's report and it was the same. Good news out of today, we are getting more players in the main group or spending time working with the main group. The only players that didn't join the main group for any part of the session was Sylvia, Moloney, Petterd, Bail, Bartram, Morton, Lawrence, Evans, Jurrah (they are just pumping miles into his legs) - I may have missed a couple but the rest either did the running with the main group or joined in with whne the balls came out. Running 12 x 200m would have been aiming for around 30sec 200m, then 2min to get back to the starting line to do it again slow jog back for most. Again worked on the zoning like Friday, thank god it is November because we sucked at this, it was harder as the ground was made narrower by about 5-10m each side. If you go to training expect to see this drill as ne need to learn how to defend and how to break through the zone. From the set up of both teams look like we are working to have three talls up forward, the whites had Martin Clark and Watts working together with Watts and Martin working through CHF. They are working hard but have a lot of work to do over the next 3 months.

Dropped in for a little while, I will let others give a full report. From the time I was there this pre-season will either make or break Blease and Gysberts. Through the running and the drills these two cop the most, the coaches are pushing them hard. The other that is working his backside of coming back from injury is Evans, he worked with two coaches and they worked him hard.

By best side would line up Bennell Frawley Rivers Grimes Martin Garland Gysberts Sylvia Trengove Howe Watts Petterd Green Jurrah Clark Jamar Moloney Jones Blease McKenzie Tapscott Davey

With the draft and trading over and only the rookie draft remaining we will always take an optimistic view to what we have added to our list. What I see our our biggest positive is we are starting to have options for a number of roles. This has been a result over the past 4 drafts and with to Scumdog picks we have it should see us top our list up nicely next year with three first round picks(Viney is one) Our forward line has been a major concern over the past few years but with a couple of years we now have Watts, Clark, Howe, Jurrah, McDonald, Sellar, Cook, Fitzpatrick add to this Sylvia, Petterd, Green, Dunn plus the resting ruckman in Jamar, Gawn or Martin you start to see a very good forward set up with a nuber of players that can kick goals. We are a little light on the small forwards this time last year we all wondered how we will fit them all in, none of the stepped up with 2 being delisted, we are left with Bennell, Davey and Lawrence Our Rucks this time last year we had Jamar then a huge cap now we have Jamar, Martin, Clark, Gawn and Spencer In defense we have a number of tall options Frawley, Garland, Rivers, Martin, Davis, McDonald We added a midsize defender Tynan to hopefully fill this role with Strauss, Bartram, Bennell, Grimes, Blease, Bail, Nicholson Then we get to the most important area, I'm confident we can kick enough goals to win matches if we can get the ball inside 50m and our back 6 are good enough to stop goals being kicked against us as long as the midfield can start to perform, these group of players are the options Moloney, Sylvia, Jones, Trengove, Grimes, Evans, Morton, Blease, Bail, Nicholson, Gysberts, Tapscott, McKenzie, Taggert, Bate, Jetta add in Viney next year, we are missing a star midfielder but we have enough there to compete and hopefully soem can turn into stars or we unearth one with the compenation picks we have in the bank. Well done to our recruiting team we are starting to see the a list with that looks balanced, that will create competition for spots and depth.

I have a t-box and I found last night you can go into big pond movies and get all the clubs TV sites. It's great all the games from last year, all the interviews and this morning I woke up to watch the interviews from last night and player highlights. On the players we drafted, another tall was a supprise but understad the reasoning, we add another midfielder and a mid size defender. Our list is really starting to get a very good balance and with one eye on next years draft we get another midfielder in Viney and the possibility of having 2 first round picks could be 3 if no club below us bids for Viney.

Love to say he did but the he didn't poll 1 vote in any games we lost, but we lost so badly not many players did. 16 of his votes came from games against Brisbane, Gold Coast, Richmond, Adelaide and Port, with the other 2 against Sydney. As i've mentioned he plaed well when the side played well.

How many of these 15 were from games against Adelaide, Fremantle, Gold Coast and Port. How many votes did he get when the team needed him to step up and lead our young midfield against the mature midfields of the competition. He played great against the weaker clubs but as mentioned like most of our team went missing when the pressure was on.

Wouldn't it be great one day to have our premium members fill level 2 from the MCC to the AFL members and our general reserve seats fill the same on level one.

No not at all Moloney is a good footballer, but like the other members of the leadership group in 2011 went missing when when needed someone to stand up, in the games we lost. Our leadership group last year set the tone for the year, when we played well they usually played well, when we didn't no one put their hand up to and showed they wanted to lead.

I think the team was that bad that you almost give Green another year as captian and hopefully someone really puts their hand up in 2012. None of our leadership group stood up when it mattered in 2011 as soon as the preesure was on the all went missing, Grimes has an excuse but he needs to get his body right. Our leaders were flat track bullies in 2011, I want to see someone stand up when things aren't going our way and say follow me boys I will get us out of this. No point making a change unless we are sure the person we will change to is up for the job.

It is all a guess but to me the players they have for the MFC are the type of players we will be drafting whether it is them or someone else we will me looking for smalls be it midfielders, HB Flankers or a small forward. I would be very supprised if we drafted a player over 192cms. My preference is outside speed and a solid mid sized defender.

If they live in Victoria they will be there Friday and if you are any chance of getting drafted the last place you would be is at schoolies and the first place you want to be after you are drafted is at training the next day.