DeeSpencer

FB: Taylor McDonald Jiath HB: Salem Turner Lindsay C; Langford Rivers Langdon HF: Chandler JVR Laurie FF: L. Pickett Jeffo Fritsch Foll: Gawn Steele K. Pickett Int: Lever, Windsor, Culley, Sparrow, AJ Emer: Adams, Howes, Kentfield, Kolt, Mentha Unavailable: May, Petty, Bowie, Viney, Mihocek, Melk

Seems optimistic, we will still largely be reliant on young talls who will fluctuate in form. But even more than that scores largely come from how good the midfield are and we at least had 1 clear advantage with contested ball dominance over other sides. Now we might have to play both Viney and Steel at times to even break even at the contest. We don’t have any idea whether Culley, Langford, Rivers, Windsor etc. can consistency impact at the contest.

But also 0.5 clearance and one less contested possession. Easier to rack up more tackles when Oliver and Tracc aren't winning the clearances from the other side too. Steele's a good tackler though, but he's going to need a big revitalization and change of health luck to make any impact for us. He was completely shot last year.

Different style but he reminded me of Fritsch at Casey last year but doesn’t impact games quite enough and isn’t big enough to be a medium goal kicker type. I’m sure they’ll be watching him closely to see if he can put it all together.

Nope they had 2 different drills today designed for 1 forward to beat 2 backs. The lead to the pocket one as mentioned. And the 2 on 1 that Earl referenced, which was probably designed more for the backs but also conditions the forward to compete against 2. It’s smart coaching reacting to the reality now that most coaches will position their defenders fairly deep and create an extra number.

4th clip from the Dees instagram story today shows the drill they were working on with kicking to an AJ lead to a pocket to beat the intercepting defender.

I noticed a number of turnovers from him today, but also that he got pressure on Koz and laid tackles where just about no one else from our team would. And I want to see him taking the game on as much as possible at training. Even at Casey he’d have 25 touches but not a single one of them is aggressive. All short sideways or long and wide. I suspect if he makes it long term he’ll be a defensive stopper first but he has to grow his offensive side, if for nothing else just to get out of trouble when it’s hot. He coughed the ball up in embarrassing ways at times last year

White’s midfield I believe with Culley, Koz, Onley and Chin. They weren’t winning but should’ve been competitive given it was a fairly uncontested type of sim. Aside from leaving Kalani out the back for 3 or 4 walk in goals my concern was the ball movement. Lever especially refuses to take what’s open.

If Lever, Adams and Taylor are our backline based on this match sim we’re in trouble. Yellow just all over white. Salo and Langdon controlling things Nice intercept and run through the middle by X Taylor now tho, gets it to Kossie for the finish

Red team: Steele busy, Jeffo making an impact with some defensive hands in and getting out the back, Harvey having a bit of a mare Yellow team: JVR just looks a different player this year, just more comfortable attacking the footy White v Yellow coming up now

Kossie is on a different level to everyone else even if it doesn’t always end perfectly. Trelly getting involved too, he loves a cut back in to the corridor kick that sets up scores. A big contest by Luker draws some praise from Richo

The Max’s, Laurie, Sharp, AMW doing some light ball movement CJ, JVR and Matthews doing sprints Main group split in 3 teams, yellow off to the side doing some small ground stuff, the other 2 teams in a match sim across the middle of the oval

They cycled through 4 different drills. Keeping’s off kicking running handball down the boundary Break from congestion to hit a 2 on 1 forward Breaking from half forward to take pings at goal Hard to read much in to it. I like Onley’s field kicking. Matthews needs to flatten it out a bit but bombed a goal from 50 no problems. Lindsay kicking well in a lot of drills. In general the energy was pretty good and skills reasonable.

2 on 1 marking drill for the talls. Key forwards: JVr, Jeffo, Kentfield Key backs; Lever, Adams, T Mc, Disco, Berry May and Kalani swapped bibs between the roles which is interesting. Wouldn’t read too much in to it but could be something we see with May, and I’d start Kalani down back at Casey if we can find a role for him. AJ doing some rehab work with an unknown left footer, looks fine. Mihocek running at speed. No sign of Petty. Howes, Taylor, Salem, CJ, AMW, Lindsay our small backs working on ball movement

Some strong stuff by Culley, though he won’t face a match up of Onley in the real stuff. Taylor was the other standout. Think we’ll need 2 x Pickett’s to clean things up and provide some defensive pressure. But the fast ball movement is still great to see even if the execution is a fair way off.

Firstly these 2 guys training at the moment are part of the AFL Academy not the Melbourne NGA academy. We don't have draft rights to either of them, although we have drafted guys we've had train with us before, most notably of late being Harvey Langford. In terms of our NGA I've got the feeling like I might be missing one or two but Toby Bedford is our best known NGA graduate who played for the club. Andy Moniz-Wakefield another who has played some games. And Ricky Mentha on the list this year. We we're ineligible to draft Mac Andrew and opted against drafting his brother Riak Andrew.

It's really not that bad, and most clubs have somewhere between 5-15 out at any one time. 11 isn't great but is pretty standard and not many are to best 22 players. We have 1 new bad injury since preseason started with was Bowser. We've got 4 guys coming back from injuries last season in AMW, McAdam, Mihocek and Matthews. AMW and Mihocek have done a fair bit of main drills. We've got 3 collision injuries to Gawn, Laurie and Campbell. Those are going to happen. Laurie and Gawn's don't sound serious. Sounds like TC's is, but that happens. 2 guys battling overuse injuries in Viney and Henderson, both since last year. Viney hopefully winning his battle. 1 short term soft tissue in Sharp.

Impressive images. Good to see the academy boys on deck. Xavier Ladbrook is the young beanpole. Darcy Szerszyn at the 10 second mark is a strong lad, he looks like he'd fit straight in.

Always nice to see the same people who fire off reactionary takes about footy feel the same way about cricket. The selectors did a masterful job picking a side who won the Ashes given there was no Hazlewood, almost no Cummins and Lyon was declining then injured. They juggle the guys they do have and found a way to take consistent wickets. The batting is a problem. Cam Green’s the only young player who’s made any kind of consistent runs at first class level, they’ll stick with him as long as possible. There’s some other promising names but the Ashes isn’t the time to blood younger guys.

He's fast enough to run himself in to trouble but not fast enough to run out of it. An early test of whether King can coach will be whether he gets fooled in to playing Sharp or leaves him at Casey until he demonstrates a lot of improvement.

He may be undersized but he made life hard for Goober Crossley in a VFL grand final. He can compete with most AFL back up rucks. The biggest question is can he impact as a forward without a heap of tricks? From what I saw he has built an excellent tank and continues to impress as a follow up at ground level type too. If the marking comes on I can see him being a useful piece of the puzzle. The way he presents up at the footy is better than purely a break case in emergency back up type.

There’s no real evidence he’s a violent or thuggish player, he’s physical, which is a good thing. But people have created a false narrative based on his appearance and rise from the VFL. He was suspended for a tackle I think, which is just adapting to AFL rules and a bump which was somewhat opportunistic. He had the chance to put body on and took it. Wasn’t any malice by it which is why NAS wasn’t concussed. I doubt he’ll end up with routine tribunal appearances. Not many players do these days aside from a rare Toby Greene type.

The big Pros are that he's been under the hood at AFL House and will know every contract, all the list rules and where the AFL are likely steering the game and rules. The Cons being he was a player manager, who then became the fall Guy for the Pies, that's not exactly a long history in footy management

The speed with which we are moving the ball is so clearly faster than the last few years. And all of the main 6 on ballers (3 a side) had moments. Koz was everywhere. Culley was a marking target and kicked a super goal from a half forward clearance. Sparrow was super busy and ran like a machine - his weaknesses remain but when he can keep it simple he’s effective. Windsor has work to do on his inside game but was just carving it up on the outside. Steele was solid. Rivers was very well rounded. All 4 key forwards were involved. JVR just kept hitting up on the flank. Seemed to finally have some connection with the mids. Jeffo had some good contests and clunked a couple, is moving well. Luker had a couple of involvements. AJ was up and back across half forward and now covers the ground like a genuine athlete and nothing like a tradie. All the key backs had moments too. T Mc and Adams at one end, even if both got beat JVR on the lead in to space. Adams kicking is looking better and better. Petty and Lever at the other. Fritsch, Chandler some almost moments from Mentha. Trell and Reg settling in. Not all that much to note from the flankers as we didn’t have too many out there!

Reg Taylor’s first instinct to counter attack with fast feet is very real and creates great transition. Plenty for him to work on but it’s always nice to see someone’s best attribute look legit