Freak

Wait, who is JCB?

Nah Nicholson could have definitely been in there. I guess, he is still on the rookie list though right? so i left him out

Okay, I went to training also. I feel that due to being on holidays from work that I've given this board a bit of compensation for my years long worth of banter on this forum. This was my 4th training. I thought the skills were actually pretty good. Personally, I'd like to see forwards spend an hour per session, just on goal kicking. I think we easily forget how frustrating it is to see anyone miss from 30-40metres out. Anyway, there was a pretty big cross wind which made it tough but from where i was sitting, the skills were pretty good. I was actually standing next to ex-Roo David King who had his AFL prospectus there and some binoculars. He was keeping a keen eye every now and then but really just a casual observe. He also had a look at collingwood for a couple of minutes. Then Wayne Campbell (ex-Tiger) came over and they chatted a bit and then headed off. Back to training. I know we all like talking about players muscle development. Anyway, I think Jeremy Howe has put on noticeable size yet hasnt lost his spring. And Jack Viney is going to be a 177cm version of chris tarrant. Watts seems about the same to me. Still pretty skinny in the legs. Strauss seems to have put on a lot of weight, he is so wide in the hips and legs and I think he has probably put on 6 or so kilograms after his leg breaking incident. He is looking good. The rookie Williams has arguable the best physique of anyone and I would love to just lock him up in the gym for 2 years and release him to the goal square(fraser Gehrig-style) at the end of it. A perfect full forwards body. Gysberts is still skinny in the arms but has pretty solid legs. Looks one of our most athletic players even though he lacks endurance. Jones, Moloney, Sylvia all look great. in the match-simulation drill Bate was in the midfield which confirmed what we all already knew. I'm not sold on Sellar, he isn't the most skilful guy in the team but if he can be 3rd man up while Frawley is wrestling with his gorilla then he will do his job. I think Cook cops a lot of flack on this board too. He is a natural reader of the play, has sticky hands and elite foot skills. He will definitely make it. No worry in the world. Troy Davis and Fitzgerald won't in my opinion. Both due to lack of foot skills. T.McDonald will be a great player but despite playing his junior footy up forward, I believe he is a backmen. I hope the coaches reaslise this sooner than later. Petterd is in for a massive year, provided he can remain injury free. Him and Jurrah will be in the 50metre arc all year. I'm also no rocket scientist but surely the reason why Tapscott is always injured is because he is so top heavy. He probably needs to shed a few kilograms, just so he can stay on the park. Josh Tynan I am yet to see drop a mark. I think he has the worlds stickiest hands and this is what i'm most excited about. I think his kicking needs to improve but his marking is top shelf. Anyway, now that pre-season training is over. My top 5 trainers go to: 1. Howe (leader in skills and has shown the most results of gym work) 2. Jones (Done every session and is a front runner at training. Bail unlucky) 3. T.Mcdonald (would've liked to see him put on a bit more upper body muscle though) 4. Bate (could arguably go number 1. Dropped probably 6 kgs. Huge effort, shows commitment. Troy Davis has also worked hard, losing a lot of weight. 5. Moloney (hasn't missed a session) Unlucky: Bartram (put on some extra muscle), Petterd (looking mighty fit), Tynan (mark my words, his arms are going to be as big as Frawley's when he gets older) My worst 5 pre-seasons, (for whatever reason) go to: 1. Jurrah (injury) 2. Davey (injury, he needs another re-invention. hopefully back to the forward line) 3. Tapscott (everyone's favourite player, but sadly, hasn't done much) 4. Mckenzie (a very important player that struggles to get on the park) 5. Sylvia (has been in the rehab group a fair bit, but I think he will be in for a huge year.HAve we ever said that about Colin before though. Okay, that's it

interesting to see how that turned out. Almost all disagreed with me and now you've all seem to have done a 180 and agree that his attack needs improvement and is no-where near Jordy Mckenzies. And lets face it, Key forwards are supposed to have the biggest attack on the footy. jonathan Brown, Riewoldt, Buddy(FF and CHF) goes really hard too. Jack Watts is being groomed as a full forward or a roaming half forward flanker. Not a bustling CHF type.

he still needs a far greater attack on the footy. And please dont provide examples when he did show this. it should be the norm, not the exception

do we seriously need a new thread whenever a player has a new twitter post

as good as goddard is, we would get 5-6 years less with them as they are that much older.

stop embarrassing yourselves guys by paying out Tom Scully. Seriously, stop trying to make yourselves feel better. He was a gun at Melbourne, and will be one of the best players in the AFL for the remaining 10 or so years of his playing career. It's no fluke that he was targeted specifically by GWS and offered him the most money in the AFL. no fluke. Lets get over the loss and use the 2 inadequate "compensation" picks at next draft and hope to God that one of them is half as good as Tom Scully.

cale morton was the next pavlich on this board. Gotta look past their draft pick number people

Incorrect. If we tell the AFL 'no, we don't want to use the scully picks this year', we will have a first round selection and a 2nd round selection and so on. If we finish bottom of the ladder, for example, and have the number 1 pick, do you think that we would have to use that first round pick on Jack Viney if Collingwood offer up their 1st round pick (let's say 18) for Viney? Of course not. It's the next available pick..ie. our 2nd rounder!

we could trade our 2 scully compensations picks for a young gun midfielder and then we would only have to give up a 2nd rounder for Viney. That might be an option too. Because if a club offers to use their 1st round on Viney, then we are obliged to use our NEXT AVAILABLE pick AFTER our first round pick. If we don't have any other 1st round picks then we can use our 2nd round.

27 Also, i heard that apparently Sylvia was reduced to tears when Neeld spoke to him at the start of his employment and grilled him about his desire to play football etc.

one of the most ridiculous things I've heard ...no offence! We have short memories. It wasn't long ago that we were starved of a decent KP defender. Now we finally get a great one and we want to move him forward? Frawley is our best defender by a country mile and moving him forward would be a terrible move. Frawley isn't even noted for his accurate kicking, something that is a must, to be a successful forward, barring a couple of exceptions

Goddard is easily the best kick in the comp. Hodge is great but ask any hawthorn supporter, he has butchered the ball in some big games.

hey guys, I think Gysberts has dropped off the radar a bit. He has struggled to put on much wait in the last 2 pre-seasons but his ball finding ability is arguably the best at the club. How many touches a game we think Gysberts will get this season? He averaged 19 last season in an injury riddled season.

amazing report. How was Taggert, Viney and Tynan?

your welcome everybody. jamar didnt complete full training by the way

I went to training. It was such a windy day, so much so that the foot skills were horrific. A few stood out however i.e. Sylvia, Moloney, Trengove, Magner and young Taggert. It was my first training where I've seen the draftees and Taggert was the standout. His kicking is elite. Tynan has great hands and moves well but his kicking needs some substantial work unfortunately. That said, it was a terrible day for footskills with shanks going everywhere and from everyone. Fitzpatrick kicked one on the full from 30metres out and brad green kicked one which i reckon came off his shin and dribbled along the ground. Frawley was all over the place too but it was really tough conditions. Don't get me started on Troy Davis. Strauss, Viney, McKenzie, Spencer, Tapscott, BArtram, Jurrah, Jetta, leigh Williams were amongst those not taking part in full training. I couldnt see Sam Blease. Grimes did full training which was a big plus. They did a few drills which involved handballing through traffic and kicking in traffic. They then moved on to a full ground drill with an emphasis on a defensive zone pushing the team wide. The other team (i.e. the one being directed wide) would then try and work the ball down the ground provided it was along a wing. My take from this drill is that next year we will be PLAYING WIDE FOOTBALL. Take this for what it is. The mood was jovial and the drills were pretty inventive so the players seemed pretty enthused. Stef Martin is training well and will play a big part of our year in 2012 even if the big Russian steps up. I also hope James Magner gets elevated. He looks like he would be a real asset and Im hoping he can play all 22 games next season. All in all a pretty good session in terrible conditions. The spirits were high. Also, at one point Viney was walking the boundary and I noticed how small he is. Sure, he is built but he isn't an intimidating guy or anything but a ball rolled over to him and I reckon he did a 20metres handball off one step. impressive.

Geez, Grimes is courageous and everything but I don't exactly want him showing how to switch play deep in the backline. Once he fixes up his brain fades then i'm all for it. My priority is for Trengove. Not just us, but I wish all clubs would harden up and pick a guy captain based on merit and not disregard someone because of their age. Trengove is great on the field and great off it.

like when you drop a mark or turn it over there was a 5 push-up penalty. What the hell. How about 50 pushups and you do them at the end of the session. ffs!

exactly. the season proper doesnt start for 3 months!!!!

I went to training. i actually thought it was a pretty cruisy training session. Jurrah, Mckenzie and Tapscott were going at comfortable paces, not raising a sweat. In fact all runners were like this. I just don't really like the nature of footy training sessions in that there is a lot of hands on hips waiting for their next turn. When you think about it each player has to line up for about 3 minutes in a lot of drills before its their turn to go. There is a lot of socialising, a lot of hands on hips and jokes etc. Everyone is jovial and you can hear their voices but if they were being worked hard enough, how come they have the energy to even talk? We were a joke last season, and every session should consist of skills work and exercise work to exhaustion/fail. How come there hasnt been any players vomiting? i've seen 3 sessions now and only 1 of these sessions I'd consider difficult fitness wise. The only positive is that the skills seem to be good.

it's not about 'making the distance', its about doing it quickly. How quickly do you do your 3km. If you do it over 10 minutes then its really nothing to gloat about

I took one for the Demonland team and went this morning. They started off by splitting up into 2 groups, who then split up again into either blue or white singlets. From there, the game was to handball your way through traffic from one end to the other end of a coned-off space. So pretty confined handballing. Jones was great at this, as well as Stef Martin, Watts was pretty good too. There were a few players in there with pads hitting some blokes, keeping them under the pump so that was pretty good to watch. After that, it broke into a full ground match simulation type drill. I'm not sure what the focus was but there was a non-Melbourne staff acting as the umpire who gave the odd free kick away. Mitch Clark was great and was very physical even though it was a token pressure tackling rule placed over the drill. He even swore at the umpire when a 50m was awarded against him. That said, there were some good tackles including morton taking down Stef Martin which got a bit of support. Watts found a bit of space on the wings and the Frawley and Garland had a lot of the ball (mostly because the ball would start at one teams backline at every opportunity). There was a blond haired kid, about 6'3 who i think was called "leroy" looked quite good. He is a big guy and whilst his kicking isnt great, he moves really well. Can someone tell me who that was? There was also a massive emphasis on the interchange bench with players being strongly instructed to not enter the field until the player had fully entered the interchange area. They had a coned off area representing the interchange and this was a big focus. Big Gawn is horribly slow around the ground and I'm far from sold on him. He ran to the interchange bench twice and was encouraged many times to hurry up and get off as he was going at a snail's pace. Sellar looks good when he doesnt have the ball. He seems to read the play well but looks a little shakey under foot. Looks handy though. On a side note, at one stage during the game Jones was yelling at Gysberts to get out of the space etc. but Gysberts wasn't actually even on the field he was walking the boundary. Gysberts yelled back to Jones 'I'm off!!!!' There were a lot of people missing today. No Sylvia, Jurrah, Jamar, Davey, Jack Viney, any of our new recruits, Petterd, Grimes, Strauss, Tapscott, Cook, Joel Macdonald, Lawrence, Jetta and many others but it was a high tempo training drill. There were no running intervals which was good as I wasnt there to watch people run. The footy's were out for the whole session. After that, Jade Rawlings got a bunch of the guys to get involved in a drill where a team had to try and handball it 10 times without turning it over or going out of bounds. It was a tough drill because there was not much space. Rawlings was participating himself and applauded Jamie Bennell twice for his efforts. Martin was great at this drill and I think he may even become our number 1 ruckman in many games next season. Troy Davis is massive and has lost a lot of weight in his legs and hips which were needed. He needs to work on his kicking now. I moved across to another drill which was a contested marking drill involving Jeremy howe, Jai Sheahan (a training invitee), Troy Davis and some other training invitee. It was a basic drill where one of the melbourne staff would kick a ball in the air to a 1 on 1 contest. Howe was the pick of the bunch by a country mile and outmarked almost everyone. I noticed Troy Davis grappling far beyond the rules of the game and if it was a real game, he would have had 10 Frees against. The coach actually told him to watch his holding but this is a big concern for me. He naturally wants to hold the singlet and grab the torso of his opponent from behind. Howe then suggested to the coach that after the marking contest, the players shoudl fight for the ball when it hits the deck. So they tried that but howe kept on marking in straight out of the air which got a bit of a laugh from the coach. At the end of the session, Leigh Brown went one on one with Cale Morton something that would scare the hell out of me in a game. It seemed like a bit of a 'rough me up' session and Cale was hardly inspiring. Leigh Brown is retired but still a big guy. It was Cale's job to spoil Brown but most of the time brown either marked it or didnt get a chance to because of the poor delivery coming in. The other match up was Rivers on Jade Rawlings. Rivers did well but at on stage when the whole team was watching the drill Rawlings plucked one clean and the consequent cheers were pretty funny. Anyway, the session went for about 80 mins and then Misson, the fitness dude, told the players to head inside for a pretty cruisy cycle on the bike machine and then have an ice bath to which Gawn replied with 'Geezice baths in Casey, who would've thought'..or something along those lines. Trengove stayed behind after to have some goal kicking practice Anyway, my highlights of the session were: Mitch Clark, Dunn, Jones, Watts (only did about half the session though), Martin and that mysterious 'Leroy' guy. Low-lights: Gysberts and Morton still skinny. No recruits there to see. All in all, it was a good session.

it's not a cheap shot its true. We lost our future in tom scully and we didn't even have a voice. We had no-one like Eddie telling GWS or the AFL to shove it. Weak and pathetic.