DeeSpencer

Of course Howe is rated higher than Kennedy. I just don't think they should be compared, anyone who is doing so from either side of the deal and/or in positives or negatives is silly. I remember when Howe nominated Collingwood Josh Mahoney was very specific about not wanting any discussions linking Howe and Kennedy together. In the end they went in the same deal with Toumpas going out and Port involved but I still think that was a matter of convenience. Howe v Hibberd is actually a far more interesting debate point. As in Toumpas v Kennedy.

We swapped Kennedy for Toumpas and got a 2nd round pick for Howe, then within a year used a similar 2nd rounder to replace Howe with Hibberd. I'm hoping Kennedy has more to offer like he did at the start of 2016 but if he doesn't then I won't be comparing him directly to Howe. Howe wanted out, he wasn't going to perform for us, his play made that pretty clear. A 2nd round pick was a fair return for him.

They use their contacts to arrange well paying jobs for players. Mostly it's above board and legal, sometimes it's a bit suspect. There's other reasons why players choose the Ammo's though. No drinking at games = far less abuse over the fence Can play with their mates from school Not getting paid means less pressure to be the star player Less violence than some country and suburban leagues Convenience - they can train once a week and play locally in Melbourne Quality facilities and medical support The other aspect is I don't think the Ammo's has a set points limit. The points system is one to keep teams equal in country and suburban leagues where by each player is assigned a points grade. Ex AFL player being the highest number of points. But after a year out of the AFL system playing in the Ammo's a players points will go down. It can be a useful step down year before heading to the bush.

I'm trying to familiarise myself with the women before the games start so I've read all the coaches reviews as well as looking at their player profiles and draft position and put together a team for the first game. It's probably way off but at least I now have an understanding of the players and even if it's only 50% right I'm more familiar with the names. FB:#### Clifford Downie HB: K. Smith Hickey De Bertoli C: Humphries D. Pearce Randall HF: Mifsud O'Dea Berry FF: ##### Crantson Anderson Foll: L. Pearce Paxman Mithen Int: Patterson Boyd Lampard Kemp Scott Phillips E: Grierson Jolly Duryea Newman Cordner

Awesome sequence 6! Highlights the strengths of 2 guys I think both have something to offer us if they do the things they did here. Ben Ken - Acceleration, balance, steadies up, draws a man and makes the smart decision (Poor Paddy McKenna's ankles) Vanders - strong in close, physical, uses his size to get the ball out of reach, hands off to a runner and follows up with a (borderline illegal) shepherd (or tackle) of the opposition. Smart, physical team play I'm certainly guilty of pointing out the weaknesses of players, especially guys on the fringes of the best 22, but the reality is if those kind of guys play to their strengths they'll contribute regardless of their deficiencies.

I don't really care about being right or wrong. To sound a bit like Saty I want all of our players to do as well as they can and for the best team to come through. That being said here's my thinking.. I'm not convinced of Hibberd as the 3rd tall defender, he's strong in the air but really not tall enough for it to be a perfect option every week. Frost is an exciting prospect and the incumbent in that position. But he's one dimensional, panics with the ball and isn't nearly as strong in the air as a guy his height should be. Other options: Garland - nope, Keilty - doubt it, Wagner - certainly, but we'll probably have Hibberd, Vince and Salem as ball users so the balance might favour another pacy option. My current round 1 team moves between Frost and just playing Hibberd, but either way Smith would be the next medium/tall defender in line.

They went with Oscar Mc which was brave I guess. And by safe I mean the mix of Garland, Lumumba and Dunn through the early rounds of the year until Wagner was tried in round 3 and Hunt round 4. Salem was also in the side then and he always should be in the best 22, they just didn't know his health was dropping away. I remember watching Wagner train and thought he was in the best 22 but they didn't overuse him in the first two round of preseason and then he was up and down against the Saints. I also remember a report from a supporters meeting that Goodwin was really keen on Hunt. Either way, I'm not critical of how they were made to earn it a little, and I agree they certainly didn't have had a bucketload of VFL form behind them. My point is just to illustrate that Goodwin might see how they waited a few weeks to get those guys in last year and decide he not to be as patient this year.

Interesting wording but I think it means they discussed him at selection but never had him in the emergencies or close enough that they were tempted to disrupt his continuity at Casey (which was already disrupted by injury during the year). He jumps out (both literally and metaphorically) at training as a guy to watch. Really good in the air and evasive at ground level. He's also made a big change to his body shape where he looks like a footballer now. I don't think he'll have the same impact and competition for spots should be greater but I think he's not far from where Hunt was this time last year. And the coaches went the safe option and didn't pick Hunt until he put some runs on the board in the VFL and he made his debut in round 4. I'm not sure Simon Goodwin will be as conservative as Roos was. Joel Smith is very close to my best 22 and if he plays well in preseason he might just get in.

Like make you believe a movie is real life.

I always thought Nibbler was named for his resemblance to the Futurama character.

Pig Hibberd Porter McDonald Killer Watts Nut Harmes Need some more creative for the new boys I think

Atlanta 24 - Seattle 27 Pats 24 - texans 16 Chiefs 23 - Steelers 20 Cowboys 16 - Packers 31 Seattle to run the ball and win it with defense. Pats to be too good but Texans D to challenge them. Cowboys offense to grind to a halt at Dak struggles and Rodgers takes over. Chief/Steelers the toughest one. I like the Steelers young D to hold up the Chiefs. Bell will run for 150+. Big Ben has been so up and down. If he plays well the Steelers will win by 7+. If the pass rush gets to him the Chiefs might have 4 picks. Berry and Peters to grab 3 between them

Only going off glimpses in the main drills more so than any detailed look at them or anything from Friday but probably the best thing I can say about all of these 3 is they haven't looked like first year players in the drills. Petracca burst passed a would be tackler the other day and Keilty slid across and tackled him. Really good agility for a big. His kicking has looked solid and so has his decision making. DJ has a neatness about his decision making and disposal that is similar to Billy Stretch. Kicks the ball low and hard and on both sides. Tim Smith has found the ball and moved it on smoothly. None of the 3 have really jumped out with blistering pace or racking up the ball which are the 2 things that stand out in the match simulation training and the contested aspect of drills has mainly been in tight which doesn't favour a key defender or two forwards. For reference with Clarry this time last year all I could see was he had a bit of agility, his decision making looked decent and his skills were good enough to get the ball where it needed to go. It wasn't until the first intraclub that there was really any way of judging what he might do at AFL level.

I've mainly seen him in rehab and light skills work, keen to see more. He's got a good frame for a young ruck, runs pretty well and his handballing and kicking is better than expected. What have you seen from him?

Jetta has had patches of games where he doesn't contribute a heap in attack and he isn't ideally suited to the zone system. So he's not quite a complete lock, but I don't see anything there that says he's out of favour either. Just the understanding that Hibberd coming in + Hunt, Wagner, Smith etc means he'll have to play consistently.

Depends on your definition of elite but Grimes did have very good endurance. Endurance, work ethic and above average reading of the play were his strengths. If he was coming through the system again I'd see him somewhere like a Billy Stretch or ANB. Stretch looks like making it because he's got the physical traits of above average endurance and speed and is very neat with his disposal on wing. ANB isn't quite as quick and is messier with the ball, much like Grimes he's had a few injuries as well, but not nearly as much as Grimes had as a young player. If Grimes was trained in efficient kicking action and decision making from a young age and avoided the injuries he might've got to a level where he was a consistent AFL player. He certainly showed he could find the ball as a young player before regressing as the competition evolved and his decision making and disposal didn't hold up. I think his comments show he knew he wasn't up to it any longer But in some ways that makes him even more of a fantastic guy to own that fact and not resent the club.

Agree. You can see his kicking and confidence dropped off when he had plenty of tape on his knee and he wasn't doing much training besides the warm up and some laps in that time. Back in the main group now after a quad issue and I think he'll be pushing hard for a spot. Assuming Oscar gets the nod as the 2nd tall defender it's going to be a really interesting choice between Frost, Joel Smith, Wagner and just going smaller with Hibberd as the third tall. For smaller teams I'd be going small, but for upside Frost and Smith are both guys I want to see at AFL level, maybe not at the same time but I want them to play and Wagner should get more chances to show he belongs.

Shame they didn't let Macca do the review of the 4th player in that set. Lewis impressing early. Oscar a coaches favourite.

Hulett injury has absolutely [censored] me off. He pulled himself out of a small group drill to have his left knee/ankle assessed. Hard to tell what exactly. Then he limped back to the sideline from the middle of the oval. Had a bit more assessment and ran some very slow run throughs at a long way below 100% intensity. All of a sudden he's back in the main group for match simulation training. He gets chased under pressure and tackled and his leg rolls under him and is down in noticeable pain and takes a while to get up and gets carried off. I just don't understand why in mid January you'd put a guy in to full match sim training when he's clearly not 100% and there hasn't been a great opportunity to test him? I get the desire to build more toughness in to players but this was silly. I'm angry.

The thing about Hogan is he's a beautiful field kick. His goal kicking only bothers me because the low margin for error in his style means it can become a mental game. First year - no mental pressure - had a great conversion rate Second year - misses a few in preseason, the media catch wind and blame it on his run up (which really wasn't the issue), the mental demons circle - poor accuracy rate I imagine smoothing out his run up and converting plenty of goals early in the year could take away the mental concerns and see him finish the year with a good accuracy rate, but my concern is if it starts to go south and becomes a media topic then you end up in that Joe Daniher/Travis Cloke stage of the pressure building with every kick. I hope they get his technique right and confidence set before the start of the season. Same goes for Petracca who is far worse, but is also unlikely to have as many set shots on goal.

Salem is the kind of unlucky injury you have on this type of camp. But it's also the kind of injury you do this camp to learn from. Better concentration or team work could've seen him put the bricks in the bottom of the bag! Tyson is a different discussion because it sounds partially like some kind of management issue with a pre existing injury and possibly some kind of recklessness (I'm just guessing) if it was a contact injury. If the thoughts Tom Browne expressed that Tyson has seen the benefit of the training has moved on then I think we can as well. I'm definitely a fan of mentally tough training in different scenarios. Team work. Bonding. Mateship. Cross training. Leadership. It's worth mixing it up rather than slogging it out at Gosch's all summer.

He'd have played ahead of Rhys Palmer, Jacob Hopper and probably even Ryan Griffen in the Prelim last year against the Dogs. The Giants get Deledio, Stevie J (suspension) and a preseason in to some quality kids including Hopper, Kennedy and 3 first rounders so the competition would be tight. But I'd back Dom to hold the 4th inside midfield spot behind Ward, Coniglio and Shiel and ahead of a pretty broken down Griffen and the kids. i generally try to stay pretty measured about players in my training reports because unless they are young guys getting their bodies and confidence to the level required (Hunt last year, hopefully Brayshaw currently) or have had a drastic shift in injury or approach the improvement over a preseason is usually small. This injury sucks for Dom because what I was seeing at training was a guy who had significantly improved.

Not a huge difference but a noticeable and important one. Hogan drops the ball too close to his body and then has to lean back and thrust his way in to his kicks or kick across the ball as he likes to do with his field kicking. That takes away momentum and distance and makes it harder to find a consistent rhythm. This photo of Watts is a better one to compare to the first image of Hogan and you can see the ball is out infront of his plant leg and that he'll swing through it with all his weight going forward. We've made a heap of progress with out coaching but I'm still surprised we don't have a specialist kicking coach with a biometric background.

With Dom repeatedly mentioning it's his quad and Mahoney's reference to the patella tendon I think he's clearly done something different to a straight forward dislocation. Are you familiar to these types of injuries? Hopefully it isn't too bad.

Doubt anyone is lying. You can disrupt a quad muscle / quad muscle tendon after a knee dislocation. Particularly if he's had soreness before. So whilst he injured his knee he is now recovering from a quad injury. I'm actually expecting a long rehab on this one unfortunately.